{"id":36285,"date":"2018-12-27T06:30:26","date_gmt":"2018-12-26T17:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=36285"},"modified":"2018-12-23T15:08:03","modified_gmt":"2018-12-23T02:08:03","slug":"a-poem-for-the-holiday-we-children-by-janine-sowerby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2018\/12\/27\/a-poem-for-the-holiday-we-children-by-janine-sowerby\/","title":{"rendered":"A Poem for the Holiday: &#8220;We Children&#8221; by Janine Sowerby"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 align=\"left\">we children<\/h3>\n<p>we children<br \/>\nwhen the days stretched<br \/>\nover the horizon, sprang<br \/>\nfrom our sleeping bags, threw<br \/>\non our summer uniform, left<br \/>\nmum and dad dreaming, ran<br \/>\nbarefoot through the bush, the river,<br \/>\nto the beach<\/p>\n<p>we children<br \/>\npopped washed up blue<br \/>\nbottles, chased cantankerous<br \/>\ncrabs, rescued stubborn sea<br \/>\ncreatures from rock pools, buried<br \/>\neach other below sand castles, built<br \/>\nforts manned by katipos, cooked ourselves<br \/>\nin the sun<\/p>\n<p>we children<br \/>\ngot seaweed in our hair, sand<br \/>\nin our bum cracks, stranded<br \/>\nby the tide, wrestled the ball<br \/>\nfrom everyone\u2019s Dad, rang<br \/>\nrings around them, stained our clothes<br \/>\ngreen, looked forward to doing it<br \/>\nall again tomorrow<\/p>\n<p>now brother<br \/>\nyou live over the horizon<br \/>\nand I no longer swim<br \/>\nin the sea<br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u00a9 Janine Sowerby<\/p>\n<p>First published in <strong>The Press<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Reproduced here with permission.<\/p>\n<pre>Note:\u00a0 Katipo(s) are a native NZ spider, often found in driftwood on beaches;\r\nthey are also NZ's only naturally occurring poisonous spider (we've gained a\r\nfew imports of recent years.)<\/pre>\n<p>\u2014<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-18489\" src=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/2013-01-27-15.15.06a-150x112.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"112\" srcset=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/2013-01-27-15.15.06a-150x112.jpg 150w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/2013-01-27-15.15.06a-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/2013-01-27-15.15.06a.jpg 410w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/>This is one of my favourite NZ summer holiday poems, which captures both the quintessential Christmas-New Year holiday but also a wonderful nostalgia for the holidays of childhood past, seen through the bitter sweetness of adult recollection. Janine Sowerby is a friend and fellow poet and writer, working across a range of media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>we children we children when the days stretched over the horizon, sprang from our sleeping bags, threw on our summer uniform, left mum and dad dreaming, ran barefoot through the bush, the river, to the beach we children popped washed up blue bottles, chased cantankerous crabs, rescued stubborn sea creatures from rock pools, buried each [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36285"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36287,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36285\/revisions\/36287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}