{"id":2006,"date":"2006-12-14T21:11:00","date_gmt":"2006-12-14T21:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/2006\/12\/14\/my-sparrow-tongue-in-aspic\/"},"modified":"2006-12-14T21:11:00","modified_gmt":"2006-12-14T21:11:00","slug":"my-sparrow-tongue-in-aspic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/2006\/12\/14\/my-sparrow-tongue-in-aspic\/","title":{"rendered":"my sparrow tongue in aspic"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"float: right; margin-left: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;\"> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/nataliaquiros\/321573621\/\" title=\"photo sharing\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/static.flickr.com\/143\/321573621_144814b56d_m.jpg\" alt=\"\" style=\"border: solid 2px #000000;\" \/><\/a> <br \/> <span style=\"font-size: 0.9em; margin-top: 0px;\">  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/nataliaquiros\/321573621\/\">TV&#8230;.<\/a>  <br \/>  Originally uploaded by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/people\/nataliaquiros\/\">natalia*<\/a>. <\/span><\/div>\n<p><i>A beloved friend of mine, (who will remain nameless), inspired by <a href=\"http:\/\/porphyre.livejournal.com\/496563.html\">the anonymous love letters<\/a> I was receiving last spring, has been sending me his own letters. They carry me more than I have the ability to tell him. They paint me as I feel in my most glorious moments. I have quite a collection of them now. I spread them across my room, tuck them into books, and generally leave them where I might re-discover them later. I&#8217;m not sure why I&#8217;ve decided I should start posting them, but this one came today addressed to Dr. J. Holmes Esq.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Dear Jhayne,<br \/>  &#038;nbsp  &#038;nbsp  Once upon a time, long, long ago, there was a girl who made herself out of wires, feathers &#038; tiny silver bells. Precious thing that she was (&#038; she was) she was ill used by the winds of fortune, tossed hither &#038; yon by rapacious storms &#8217;till one day (a day like any other) she said<br \/>  &#038;nbsp  &#038;nbsp  &#038;nbsp  &#038;nbsp  enough<br \/>&#038; thrust half of her wires deep into the soil &#038; wrapped the other half tight around a nearby tree &#038; screamed in pain and defiance as the winds tore at her feathers &#038; set her bells a-ringing &#038; the cacophony was almost as unbearable as the wrenching tearing straining &#038; then it wasn&#8217;t, and it wasn&#8217;t.<br \/>  &#038;nbsp  &#038;nbsp  &#038;nbsp  &#038;nbsp  Here I&#8217;ll stay<br \/>  &#038;nbsp  she said &#038; the trees all bent to listen, for precious thing that she was (&#038; she was) the peal of her voice was like fresh fallen acorns gone to root in spring sunlight &#038; they bent their trunks &#038; spread their boughs low &#038; she slept in the shade for a century or three until the raggedness of her feathers receded &#038; her cables grew back thick &#038; strong. Precious thing though she was (&#038; she really was), memory is not forever &#038; she spread her wings one autumn morning &#038; flew straight back up into the waiting arms of the storm.<\/p>\n<p><i>And this one is a favourite. It lives next to my bed, where I don&#8217;t have to read it, but simply know that it&#8217;s been carefully folded and placed there in memory of something that almost was as well as what most certainly managed to be. I refuse to admit how much of this I have actually spoken.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>  &#038;nbsp &#8220;Intelligence cannot be a one way street,&#8221; you lazily alleged, more to pick a fight than because you really believed it. Or anything.<br \/>  &#038;nbsp &#038;nbsp (Your hair, burnished copper, framed your face like the latin in a sermon, painfully bright against the cool ebony of your naked shoulders)<br \/>  &#038;nbsp &#8220;When we think about things, things think about us,&#8221; you continued blithely, &#8220;Think about it! Why does genius die young? It&#8217;s not simply that nature abhors a smartass. nature abhors everything, but only in the presence of brilliance does it have the wherewithal to do anything about it.&#8221;<br \/>  &#038;nbsp &#038;nbsp (I traced the lines of your stomach, the graceful curve of your hips as they levered you upright with that gentle susurration of rock on metal.)<br \/>  &#038;nbsp  &#8220;It works with people, too. Intelligent people don&#8217;t cluster, have no real power to attract each other; they make each other, force each other up out of the endless sea of stupid, form conversation partners out of, effectively, dust.&#8221;<br \/>  &#038;nbsp   &#038;nbsp (The clack of gears is the voice of angels as you stand and look down at me, amber eyes glinting, teeth glowing gold in the firelight)<br \/>  &#038;nbsp You add, offhandedly, &#8220;Of course, this applies doubly to us.&#8221;<br \/>   &#038;nbsp &#038;nbsp (You may be right, but I&#8217;m not listening, am too wrapped up in the wonder that I could ever build anything as beautiful as you.)<br clear=\"all\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>TV&#8230;. Originally uploaded by natalia*. A beloved friend of mine, (who will remain nameless), inspired by the anonymous love letters I was receiving last spring, has been sending me his own letters. They carry me more than I have the ability to tell him. They paint me as I feel in my most glorious moments. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/2006\/12\/14\/my-sparrow-tongue-in-aspic\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;my sparrow tongue in aspic&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[94,984,987,985,986],"class_list":["post-2006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-letters","tag-pet","tag-pretty","tag-stories","tag-worth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2006\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foxtongue.com\/dreampepper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}