{"id":5667,"date":"2019-01-14T19:53:47","date_gmt":"2019-01-14T19:53:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=5667"},"modified":"2019-01-27T19:54:32","modified_gmt":"2019-01-27T19:54:32","slug":"the-wild-things-ann-drury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=5667","title":{"rendered":"THE WILD THINGS – Ann Drury"},"content":{"rendered":"

(The North American Pink Lady Slipper)<\/em><\/p>\n

Near slow moving water<\/p>\n

a crowd of lady slippers<\/p>\n

gathers in the woods<\/p>\n

this Saturday in June.<\/p>\n

Tripping over their green skirts,<\/p>\n

they carry with them<\/p>\n

their endangered pink shoes.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve come to discuss<\/p>\n

the current situation.<\/p>\n

Climate change is<\/p>\n

a concern of theirs,<\/p>\n

due to their symbiotic relationship<\/p>\n

with a certain fungus and<\/p>\n

the bumble bee.<\/p>\n

Lady slippers-  whisperers<\/p>\n

of the past.<\/p>\n

They grow where the<\/p>\n

bloody feet of an Indian maiden<\/p>\n

touched the earth as she<\/p>\n

hurried over the snow<\/p>\n

in search of the medicine<\/p>\n

that would save her people.<\/p>\n

They have many foes, lady slippers-<\/p>\n

the occasional white-tailed deer,<\/p>\n

the odd hiker,<\/p>\n

and of course industrialization<\/p>\n

and human expansion.<\/p>\n

So this Saturday in June<\/p>\n

these fine flowers,<\/p>\n

delicate pink orchids,<\/p>\n

huddle in their fern-fringed dell;<\/p>\n

and pledge to send an SOS-<\/p>\n

in the form of  pale puffs of pollen,<\/p>\n

from the depths and edges<\/p>\n

of the continent,<\/p>\n

for as long as it takes<\/p>\n

to protect the wild places,<\/p>\n

obliterate irrational borders<\/p>\n

illuminate every city in green<\/p>\n

and make our planet great again.<\/p>\n

   
\nNote: Lady slippers are flowers found in damp and wooded areas. They are rare pink and white orchids native to North America.<\/p>\n

 
\nAnn Drury is an educator and poet living in southeastern Massachusetts.  Her  poems have appeared in many literary journals including: Blueline, Penwood Review<\/em>, and Muddy River Review<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(The North American Pink Lady Slipper) Near slow moving water a crowd of lady slippers gathers in the woods this Saturday in June. Tripping over their green skirts, they carry with them their endangered pink shoes. They\u2019ve come to discuss the current situation. Climate change is a concern of theirs, due to their symbiotic relationship [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5717,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[308],"class_list":["post-5667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","tag-pink-lady-slippers-by-magellan-nh-wikicommons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5667"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5864,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5667\/revisions\/5864"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}