{"id":10568,"date":"2020-09-09T11:36:28","date_gmt":"2020-09-09T18:36:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/?p=10568"},"modified":"2026-01-21T16:28:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T00:28:22","slug":"a-reckoning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/2020\/09\/09\/a-reckoning\/","title":{"rendered":"A Reckoning"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>\u201cYou Will Never Get Death \/ Out of Your System&#8221;<\/strong><br \/>\nby <a href=\"http:\/\/www.danalevinpoet.com\/poetry\">Dana Levin<\/a><\/p>\n<p>How old is the earth? I asked my machine, and it said: Five great extinctions, one in process, four and a half billion years.<\/p>\n<p>It has always been very busy on Earth: so much coming and going! The terror and the hope ribboning through that.<\/p>\n<p>Death, like a stray dog you kick out of the yard who keeps coming back\u2014its scent of freedom and ruin\u2014<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Some people love death so much they want to give it to everyone. <\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Some are more selective.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Some people don\u2019t know they\u2019re alive.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Metabolic system, financial system, political system, eco-system\u2014systems management, running around trying to put out fires\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Sodium nitrate. Sodium benzoate. Butylated Hydroxyanisole (to keep the food from rotting). Plastic (surgery). Botox, Viagra, cryo-chamber\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Voting backwards, into what<br \/>\nhas already died\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Voting Zombie in the name of \u201cchange\u201d\u2014<\/p>\n<p>And everywhere in fortune cookies, the oracular feint of a joke future\u2014<\/p>\n<p>where death is the trick candle on the victory cake. <\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Some truths are hard to accept. Especially when they won\u2019t budge beyond a couplet. <\/p>\n<p>Especially when they won\u2019t tell you if they mean you well, if they herald freedom or ruin\u2014<\/p>\n<p>You! You and Death! Lovers who just can\u2019t quit. That\u2019s how we make the future.<\/p>\n<p>The terror and the hope of that, as change goes viral.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cYou Will Never Get Death \/ Out of Your System&#8221; by Dana Levin How old is the earth? I asked my machine, and it said: Five great extinctions, one in process, four and a half billion years. It has always been very busy on Earth: so much coming and going! The terror and the hope [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,215],"tags":[325,140,324,61],"class_list":["post-10568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature","category-poetry","tag-awake","tag-death","tag-extinction","tag-life"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10568"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10579,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10568\/revisions\/10579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}