{"id":1535,"date":"2021-04-18T10:40:44","date_gmt":"2021-04-18T18:40:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/judykaber.com\/?p=1535"},"modified":"2021-04-18T10:40:56","modified_gmt":"2021-04-18T18:40:56","slug":"emptying-the-ashes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/judykaber.com\/?p=1535","title":{"rendered":"Emptying the ashes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<pre class=\"wp-block-verse\">Each morning they accumulate\nin the belly of my stove, grey,\n\ngiving off little smoke or heat,\nhiding the small, hot coals\n\nthat I use to start anew.\nEach morning I kneel, peer in,\n\nshovel out their soft bodies,\nspill them into the waiting pail.\n\nThey are all that remains\nof the past, of the hard logs\n\nthat I carried in, of the trees\nonce standing in the stand\n\nbefore the growl of the chain saw\nand the black truck that pulled\n\nthem clear.\u00a0 I think about my children\nas I carry the pail to the ditch\n\nto spill out the ashes\u2014their toys,\nthe way they made castles from clay,\n\nthe role playing card games, the nights\nup late, while I lay in bed\n\ntrying to sleep.\u00a0 I hardly ever see them\nnow, though I still have boxes labeled\n\nwith their names on the shelves.\nThe ashes cascade down, black clumps\n\namong them.\u00a0 Pieces that never\nfinished burning, that leave dark marks\n\nwhen you lift them in your hands.\n\n\nCafe Review\nSpring 2017\n\n<\/pre>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Each morning they accumulate in the belly of my stove, grey, giving off little smoke or heat, hiding the small, hot coals that I use to start anew. Each morning I kneel, peer in, shovel out their soft bodies, spill them into the waiting pail. They are all that remains of the past, of the &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/judykaber.com\/?p=1535\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Emptying the ashes&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/judykaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/judykaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/judykaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/judykaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/judykaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1535"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/judykaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1538,"href":"https:\/\/judykaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1535\/revisions\/1538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/judykaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/judykaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/judykaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}