{"id":1096,"date":"2022-11-16T19:00:59","date_gmt":"2022-11-17T00:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pensivejournal.com\/?p=1096"},"modified":"2022-11-14T21:42:01","modified_gmt":"2022-11-15T02:42:01","slug":"the-future-of-the-sun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pensivejournal.com\/poetry\/the-future-of-the-sun\/","title":{"rendered":"The Future of the Sun"},"content":{"rendered":"

Take it from the ducks\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

scrambling for the crusts of bread<\/span><\/p>\n

we toss into the Vltava River \u2013\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

this is a place with real hungers.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The people of Prague were still\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

dismantling sandbags\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

from the face of their city<\/span><\/p>\n

twenty years after the\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

the bombs and tanks\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

of World War II tore\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

though her.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There is burned in my memory\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

the image of my grandfather\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

falling to his knees<\/span><\/p>\n

and sweeping off his hat\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

to bend his head\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

toward the ground\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

that received the blood\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

of the villagers of Lidice<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

slaughtered by Hitler\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

just to show the Czech people\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

what they were in for\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

as he entered their lands<\/span><\/p>\n

after Great Britain,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

France and Italy gave them<\/span><\/p>\n

to him at Munich.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(He left two villagers alive\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

to spread his word.)<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know how many heads\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

bent in homage to the dead\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

it takes to heal their\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

arbitrary murder–<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

how many years it takes\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

for the victims of brutality<\/span><\/p>\n

to come back into the sun<\/span><\/p>\n

of history.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Yet there is a certain time of day\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

(a certain time of life)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

when the sun strikes the river<\/span><\/p>\n

in just such a way that its waters\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

are our perfect reflection<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

and we forget all sorrow.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It was such a day my grandfather walked me\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

over the Karlovy Bridge in Prague,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

relating the stories sculpted in its statues–<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

telling me of the ancient competition\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

between Prague and Istanbul\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

to become the most beautiful city<\/span><\/p>\n

in Europe<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

as both cities rose up under the sun\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

waiting to shine on a future\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

when soldiers crossed their\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

beautiful bridges\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

only to feed the ducks.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Take it from the ducks\u00a0 scrambling for the crusts of bread we toss into the Vltava River \u2013\u00a0   this is a place with real hungers.\u00a0\u00a0   The people of Prague were still\u00a0 dismantling sandbags\u00a0 from the face of their city twenty years after the\u00a0 the bombs and tanks\u00a0 of World War II tore\u00a0 though…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"issue":[11],"coauthors":[87],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Future of the Sun | Pensive Journal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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