Focus first on the black trunks, then the snow
\nthat beats the ripples, then the wind-whipped flag,
\nthe high school’s streaked cement and darkened glass,
\nlike the building I would have trudged up to
\ntwenty-five winters past. He tugs to move,
\nsnuffling his first snow; everything’s a first
\nfor him–hunched ducks on logs, the distant train.
\nIn my ears, Albinoni’s oboes step
\nlightly, unruffled by the imminent
\ncoda, and take the repeat serenely,
\neven though poor old Tomasso’s been dead
\n(of diabetes) more than two hundred
\nsodden Venetian winters. The coda comes,
\nthe dog pulls me homeward, and where we’d stood,
\nthe patient snow melts back into the waves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Focus first on the black trunks, then the snow that beats the ripples, then the wind-whipped flag, the high school’s streaked cement and darkened glass, like the building I would have trudged up to twenty-five winters past. He tugs to move, snuffling his first snow; everything’s a first for him–hunched ducks on logs, the distant […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-verse-and-worse"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5582"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6188,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5582\/revisions\/6188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}