{"id":10747,"date":"2021-01-10T19:02:57","date_gmt":"2021-01-11T02:02:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/?p=10747"},"modified":"2021-01-10T19:02:58","modified_gmt":"2021-01-11T02:02:58","slug":"feeding-the-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/?p=10747","title":{"rendered":"Feeding the Dead"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"585\" height=\"720\" src=\"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/585px-Albert_Anker_-_Alter_Wein_und_Brot_1896.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-10748\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/585px-Albert_Anker_-_Alter_Wein_und_Brot_1896.jpg 585w, http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/585px-Albert_Anker_-_Alter_Wein_und_Brot_1896-244x300.jpg 244w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 585px) 100vw, 585px\" \/><figcaption>By Albert Anker &#8211; Schweizerisches Institut f\u00c3\u00bcr Kunstwissenschaft, SIK-ISEA inventory number 93320, Public Domain, https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=70014557<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Deborah L. Davitt<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-preformatted\"><font face=\"Arial\">\nI never thought of bread\nas a living thing, but it is,\na colony of yeast bacteria\ngiven living space and food\nin a matrix of earth-given grain,\nsea-born salt, and sky-born water;\nthey exhale their own breath\nto make their city rise,\nand we freeze them in place\nwith fiery oven heat.\n\u00c2\u00a0\nLittle wonder then,\nthat the Romans brought bread\nand wine for libation\nto the graves of their ancestors,\nand sent the living food\ndown feeding tubes\nto the bones and ashes\nto appease the hungry ghosts;\n\u00c2\u00a0\nlittle wonder, too,\nthat on\u00c2\u00a0<em>Dia de la Muerte,<\/em>\npeople for whom that language\nhangs richly on their tongues\nset out living bread for the dead,\nmarked with bones,\nor Chimalma\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tears.\n\u00c2\u00a0\nMaybe the ghosts can sniff out\nthe life in it, the bacteria\nstill struggling to survive\ntheir own cremation,\nentombed in the rigid shape\nof their own mobile grave;\nmaybe they have to respect\nthe struggle to endure,\nso like their own;\nmaybe, like the living,\nthey just like the smell\nof hot, buttered bread,\nfresh from the oven,\nand cling to the heels\nas we bring the last pieces\nto our churning mouths.\n\u00c2\u00a0\nMaybe they slide lusciously\ndown into our gullets,\ningested with the bread\nand perhaps the wine\nthat we pour into glasses\ninstead of on the grass;\nmaybe they become a part of us,\nand leave the graveside\nnestled in our hearts and bowels,\ninstead of lingering\nto stare at futile plastic roses\nleft to fade in the sun.<\/font><\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Deborah L. Davitt I never thought of bread as a living thing, but it is, a colony of yeast bacteria given living space and food in a matrix of earth-given grain, sea-born salt, and sky-born water; they exhale their own breath to make their city rise, and we freeze them in place with fiery oven [&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-10747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10747","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=10747"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10747\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10749,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10747\/revisions\/10749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}