{"id":10,"date":"2009-04-11T20:47:57","date_gmt":"2009-04-12T03:47:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/basweeney.com\/writings\/?p=10"},"modified":"2009-05-03T13:29:34","modified_gmt":"2009-05-03T20:29:34","slug":"alexia-skates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/basweeney.com\/writings\/?p=10","title":{"rendered":"Alexia Skates"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Barbara Sweeney<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>She pushes out over the bumpy pond,<br \/>\nthe boots of her grandmother\u2019s skates<br \/>\nworn through,<br \/>\na fine-boned beauty,<br \/>\nwillow thin,<br \/>\nhair pale as ash,<br \/>\neyes the color of lake water<br \/>\nin late spring.<br \/>\nWith arms outstretched, she sails<br \/>\neyes shut into the wind.<br \/>\nEven from far off,<br \/>\nI know her eyelids still make<br \/>\nthat blue veined map of the world<br \/>\nall mothers memorize from their sleeping children.<\/p>\n<p>She skates to inner music,<br \/>\nChopin\u2019s Waltz in C# Major, maybe,<br \/>\nor Bach\u2019s<br \/>\n<em>Jesu, Joy of Man\u2019s Desiring<\/em>, piano pieces<br \/>\nshe practices for hours on end,<br \/>\nslender hands sliding over the keys.<br \/>\nShe carves figure eights<br \/>\nonto a smooth patch of black ice,<br \/>\ntwirls over trout, twigs,<br \/>\nleaves &#8212; life frozen into place.<br \/>\nAbruptly she turns and cuts out<br \/>\nacross the moaning lake, makes her way<br \/>\naround foot-thick plates of ice pushing up<br \/>\ninto jagged planes.<br \/>\nShe skates on for half a mile<br \/>\nbefore turning to freeze me in her frame.<br \/>\nShe takes in her world<br \/>\nmeasure by measure,<br \/>\nas I mark her meters from the snowy shore,<br \/>\nkeeping time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Barbara Sweeney She pushes out over the bumpy pond, the boots of her grandmother\u2019s skates worn through, a fine-boned beauty, willow thin, hair pale as ash, eyes the color of lake water in late spring. With arms outstretched, she sails eyes shut into the wind. Even from far off, I know her eyelids still [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alexia_skates","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/basweeney.com\/writings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/basweeney.com\/writings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/basweeney.com\/writings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/basweeney.com\/writings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/basweeney.com\/writings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/basweeney.com\/writings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62,"href":"http:\/\/basweeney.com\/writings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10\/revisions\/62"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/basweeney.com\/writings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/basweeney.com\/writings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/basweeney.com\/writings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}