{"id":1050,"date":"2016-03-28T08:55:06","date_gmt":"2016-03-28T15:55:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/?p=1050"},"modified":"2016-04-09T06:53:06","modified_gmt":"2016-04-09T13:53:06","slug":"the-maidens-of-woodlice-by-john-sexton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/?p=1050","title":{"rendered":"The Maidens of Woodlice by John W. Sexton"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-1053\" src=\"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Schiele_-_Sitzendes_M\u00c3\u00a4dchen_mit_schwarzer_Sch\u00c3\u00bcrze_-_1911-187x300.jpg\" alt=\"Schiele_-_Sitzendes_M\u00c3\u00a4dchen_mit_schwarzer_Sch\u00c3\u00bcrze_-_1911\" width=\"187\" height=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Her grandmother would nurture them,<br \/>\nteasing them out from beneath stones,<br \/>\nunsnagging them from damp moss.<br \/>\nShe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d keep them in her apron pockets,<br \/>\nwhich were always damp. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153These tiny<br \/>\nthingeens are ancient creatures of the sea.<br \/>\nSo ye must keep them moist, girleen.<br \/>\nOtherwise they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll dry out. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re only tiny now<br \/>\nbecause their seas have long vanished.<br \/>\nBut keep them with you and their seas will return.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Grandmother kept them safe there in her apron for hours.<br \/>\nThen would let them go again. But before letting them go<br \/>\nshe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d hold them on the tip of her forefinger<br \/>\nand lift them up to the sunlight. Then she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d bid<br \/>\nher grand-daughter to look at them. The first time she looked,<br \/>\nshe could see that they were transparent under the light,<br \/>\nthe inner workings of their bodies like cogs in a machine.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Mind these thingeens as if they were money,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said her grandmother.<\/p>\n<p>She didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really know why her grandmother<br \/>\nput so much importance upon them,<br \/>\nbut she trusted her in all things.<br \/>\nThat is why she always nurtured them herself,<br \/>\nkeeping them safe and moist in her pockets, or else<br \/>\nalways had some in her purse or a side section of her handbag.<br \/>\nShe came to realise their significance only as she aged,<br \/>\nas she became bent and baggy.<\/p>\n<p>She could feel the sea in her hair,<br \/>\neven though she was miles from any ocean,<br \/>\nand knew that it was the woodlice who bid its presence.<br \/>\nAnd she could hear waves, ancient as space, crashing all around her.<br \/>\nIn time she could hear the woodlice themselves,<br \/>\ntheir voices like small timepieces ticking seconds.<br \/>\nAnd seconds that added up to minutes and hours and days and weeks,<br \/>\nand months and years and forever. All of Time was their<br \/>\nconversation, and she listened to every word, until she<br \/>\nwas part of that eternal noise. And that noise was creation,<br \/>\nimminent and transcendent. And she knew finally the importance<br \/>\nof minding those woodlice, and wished now that she had someone to tell.<\/p>\n<h6>painting:\u00c2\u00a0<i>Sitting girl with black apron by Egon Schiele<\/i><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Her grandmother would nurture them, teasing them out from beneath stones, unsnagging them from damp moss. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d keep them in her apron pockets, which were always damp. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153These tiny thingeens are ancient creatures of the sea. So ye must keep them moist, girleen. Otherwise they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll dry out. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re only tiny now because their seas have [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1050"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1050\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1068,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1050\/revisions\/1068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}