{"id":14,"date":"2009-04-11T20:52:37","date_gmt":"2009-04-12T03:52:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/basweeney.com\/writings\/?p=14"},"modified":"2009-04-11T20:52:37","modified_gmt":"2009-04-12T03:52:37","slug":"burying-the-dog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/basweeney.com\/writings\/?p=14","title":{"rendered":"Burying the Dog"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Barbara Sweeney<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>At twilight, the mans begins<br \/>\ndigging the shallow grave.<br \/>\nHis young daughter sits hunched close by,<br \/>\nwatching her father in the garden<br \/>\nas she has so many times before:<br \/>\nplanting carrots, pruning roses,<br \/>\nfeeding the trees.<br \/>\nShe questions each wordless shovelful<br \/>\nwith a slim, serious voice, &#8220;Daddy,<br \/>\nare you very sad?&#8221;, and,<br \/>\n&#8220;Can I show my friends?&#8221;<br \/>\nHer blonde head is a point of light,<br \/>\nwhite against piles of earth<br \/>\nand a darkening sky.<br \/>\n&#8220;I really do want to show my friends&#8221;, she says,<br \/>\nand makes her deliberate way next door.<\/p>\n<p>When she&#8217;s gone, the man places the heavy animal<br \/>\nin the ground, throwing dirt<br \/>\nback into the hole,<br \/>\nbreathing hard, sweating at the task.<br \/>\nFinished, he rakes a few even lines<br \/>\nover the gentle mound.<br \/>\nSoon the girl returns, &#8220;He&#8217;s so dead<br \/>\nyou won&#8217;t believe it,&#8221;<br \/>\nshe advises her older friends, she,<br \/>\nnow an authority<br \/>\non things of other worlds.<\/p>\n<p>The children stand quietly<br \/>\nin the moonless garden.<br \/>\nHand in hand, they stare<br \/>\nat their shoes,<br \/>\nat the earth,<br \/>\nat the man.<br \/>\nThey see the chores that loss forces us to take.<br \/>\nThey see love lean over a rake<br \/>\nand look closely at the ground<br \/>\nto see if it moves.<\/p>\n<p><em>Appeared in The Connecticut River Review, Summer\/Fall 1996<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Barbara Sweeney At twilight, the mans begins digging the shallow grave. His young daughter sits hunched close by, watching her father in the garden as she has so many times before: planting carrots, pruning roses, feeding the trees. She questions each wordless shovelful with a slim, serious voice, &#8220;Daddy, are you very sad?&#8221;, and, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-burying_the_dog","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/basweeney.com\/writings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14"}],"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=14"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/basweeney.com\/writings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15,"href":"http:\/\/basweeney.com\/writings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions\/15"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/basweeney.com\/writings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/basweeney.com\/writings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/basweeney.com\/writings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}