{"id":10261,"date":"2018-12-12T20:13:01","date_gmt":"2018-12-12T20:13:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/?p=10261"},"modified":"2018-12-12T20:13:01","modified_gmt":"2018-12-12T20:13:01","slug":"i-kid-you-not-by-laura-rodley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/2018\/12\/i-kid-you-not-by-laura-rodley\/","title":{"rendered":"“I Kid You Not” by Laura Rodley"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Hey there! Happy December! I haven\u2019t posted in a while, but then I got this poem from Laura Rodley<\/strong><\/a> and I wanted to share it.<\/p>\n

Peace, love, and solace<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I Kid You Not<\/strong><\/p>\n

The bird whose name he does not know
\nflew smack against his armpit-
\nthe beginning of the heart meridian-
\nsmack through the car window,
\nbounced to the floor amidst papers
\nand cookie wrappers as though dead,
\neyes closed, smacked him hard enough
\nfor it to hurt, leave a faint bruise.
\nHe stopped, when it was safe
\non the Vermont country road with no shoulders
\nwhere people get killed walking
\nand scrounged through the papers,
\nthe bird\u2019s eyes open now, beaded on his,
\nhe lay the small bird, wren shaped,
\npale green, white stripe on its head with black speckles,
\none he\u2019d never seen before, nor later find
\nin the Audubon book,
\nlay it on the near stump, scarcely breathing,
\nset out a ripped-in-half Dixie cup of water,
\nhoping he would drink. The small beating heart
\nof the bird did not stop, and he left it
\nto continue his own route, one week before he was thumped
\nagain, smacked hard from the inside window of his own body,
\nin the same place on both sides of his torso,
\nhard enough to stop him in his running flight,
\nhard enough to bring him home,
\nwhen a different white car saved him,
\nbrought him to the emergency room,
\nto lay him down to catch his breath,
\ngive his stunned blocked heart a chance to open,
\nand that car was driven by me.<\/p>\n

Laura Rodley \u00a9 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"Laura Rodley<\/strong> is a Massachusetts poet whose latest books are Counter Point<\/em> <\/strong>(Prolific Press) and Turn Left at Normal<\/strong> <\/em>(Big Table Publishing). Her poem \u201cResurrection\u201d<\/strong><\/a> (published on New Verse News<\/em><\/strong><\/a>) appears in The Pushcart Prlze XXXVII: Best of the Small Presses (2013 edition).<\/p>\n

Laura Rodley<\/strong> teaches the As You Write It memoir class and has edited and published As You Write It, A Franklin County Anthology Volumes I-VI<\/em>, which was nominated for a Mass Book Award.\"\"<\/p>\n

She is also a freelance writer for publications such as Country Folks<\/em>.<\/p>\n

THANK-YOU to Laura\u00a0 Rodley<\/strong> for sharing her work here. You inspire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hey there! Happy December! I haven\u2019t posted in a while, but then I got this poem from Laura Rodley and I wanted to share it. Peace, love, and solace     I Kid You Not The bird whose name he does not know flew smack against his armpit- the beginning of the heart meridian- smack […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10263,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[127,3466,1632,12,928,3546,205,2473,39,3547,13,2738,7,16,3464,32],"class_list":{"0":"post-10261","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-contributors-2","9":"tag-counter-point","10":"tag-ellen-beals","11":"tag-ellen-wade-beals","12":"tag-heart","13":"tag-heart-attack","14":"tag-laura-rodley","15":"tag-new-verse-news","16":"tag-photography","17":"tag-poems-about-birds","18":"tag-poetry","19":"tag-resurrection","20":"tag-solace","21":"tag-solace-in-so-many-words","22":"tag-turn-left-at-normal","23":"tag-weighed-words","24":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10261"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10271,"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10261\/revisions\/10271"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}