{"id":2127,"date":"2025-04-26T11:08:41","date_gmt":"2025-04-26T15:08:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/newplum\/?p=2127"},"modified":"2025-04-26T11:09:18","modified_gmt":"2025-04-26T15:09:18","slug":"how-things-are-lit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/how-things-are-lit\/","title":{"rendered":"How Things Are Lit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 for Arlo<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The black night of old constellations<br \/>\nhas not yet thought to open its eyes.<br \/>\nYou are tucked in your car seat,<br \/>\nbundled against the pre-dawn cold.<br \/>\nIn the glow of the dome light,<br \/>\nI lean close to say a last goodbye.<br \/>\nMy lips touch your hand,<br \/>\nI look up at your face<br \/>\nand when I whisper <em>goodbye Arlo<\/em><br \/>\nyou simply shake your head,<br \/>\nnot using your newest word <em>no<\/em><br \/>\nbut something sadder, something<br \/>\nthat echoes in the darkness<br \/>\nafter I\u2019ve kissed your father,<br \/>\nour cheeks damp,<br \/>\nhugged your mom until we felt<br \/>\nsoft woman against woman.<br \/>\nYour slow shake of the head<br \/>\nsurrounds me on the path,<br \/>\nand across what\u2019s dark and vast<br \/>\nstars record a history of loss.<br \/>\nIn the lit house<br \/>\nI see your grandfather,<br \/>\nhead white beneath the lamp,<br \/>\nhe who had asked<br \/>\nwhen we awoke side by side,<br \/>\n<em>who am I saying goodbye to today?<\/em><br \/>\nI step back into the house of him,<br \/>\ninto my wish to fathom<br \/>\nthe unending dimensions of light<br \/>\none might give to another.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 for Arlo The black night of old constellations has not yet thought to open its eyes. You are tucked in your car seat, bundled against the pre-dawn cold. In &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/how-things-are-lit\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">How Things Are Lit<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"issue":[6876],"class_list":["post-2127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","issue-6876"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-12 14:01:16","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2127\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2127"},{"taxonomy":"issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue?post=2127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}