{"id":11604,"date":"2013-04-08T10:42:21","date_gmt":"2013-04-08T15:42:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.berkshirelinks.com\/?p=11604"},"modified":"2013-04-08T10:42:21","modified_gmt":"2013-04-08T15:42:21","slug":"playing-to-the-river-poem-by-jeff-daniel-marion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/playing-to-the-river-poem-by-jeff-daniel-marion\/","title":{"rendered":"Playing to the River, poem by Jeff Daniel Marion"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"page-header\">\n<h1>American Life in Poetry<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>Column 420; by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate<\/strong><br \/>\nThere\u2019s something wonderful about happening upon a musician playing for his or her own pleasure, completely absorbed in the music. Jeff Daniel Marion is a fine poet from east Tennessee. And here\u2019s a woman playing the bagpipes. <\/p>\n<h2>Playing to the River, poem by Jeff Daniel Marion<\/h2>\n<pre>\nShe stands by the riverbank,\nnotes from her bagpipes lapping\nacross to us as we wait\n\nfor the traffic light to change.\nShe does not know we hear\u2014\nshe is playing to the river,\n\na song for the water, the flow\nof an unknown melody to the rocky\nbluffs beyond, for the mist\n\nthat was this morning, shroud\nof past lives: fishermen\nand riverboat gamblers, tugboat captains\n\nand log raftsmen, pioneer and native\nslipping through the eddies of time.\nShe plays for them all, both dirge\n\nand surging hymn, for what has passed\nand is passing as we slip\ninto the currents of traffic,\nthe changed light bearing us away.\n<\/pre>\n<h3>about American Life in Poetry<\/h3>\n<p>American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright \u00a92007 by Nancy Price from her book of poetry Two Voices and a Moon, Malmarie Press, 2007. Reprinted by permission of Nancy Price and the publisher. Introduction copyright \u00a9 2012 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction&#8217;s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>American Life in Poetry Column 420; by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate There\u2019s something wonderful about happening upon a musician playing for his or her own pleasure, completely absorbed in the music. Jeff Daniel Marion is a fine poet from east Tennessee. And here\u2019s a woman playing the bagpipes. Playing to the River, poem by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_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":[],"class_list":["post-11604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-uncategorized","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11604\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}