{"id":239,"date":"2012-02-12T11:18:06","date_gmt":"2012-02-12T19:18:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/?p=239"},"modified":"2012-02-12T11:18:06","modified_gmt":"2012-02-12T19:18:06","slug":"anniversary-of-a-departure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/?p=239","title":{"rendered":"Anniversary of a Departure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Fifty years ago today, my husband Tony and I said farewell to family on the quay in Wellington, New Zealand, and walked up the gangplank of the ocean liner <a title=\"JVO pictures\" href=\"http:\/\/www.simplonpc.co.uk\/JohanVanOldenbarnevelt.html\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Johan Van Oldenbarnevelt<\/em><\/a>, drawn by that migratory urge young New Zealanders have to explore the other side of the world. This poem says a little about how it felt.<\/p>\n<p><br class=\"spacer_\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<p>LEAVING NEW ZEALAND<\/p>\n<p><br class=\"spacer_\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I am Katherine Mansfield come again<\/p>\n<p>on that slow ship out of Wellington.<\/p>\n<p>Taste of bile in my mouth, I endure<\/p>\n<p>the airless heat of the lower decks<\/p>\n<p>rank with galley smells<\/p>\n<p>and the deep-throated thump of engines.<\/p>\n<p>The ice-slick of my daughter\u2019s death<\/p>\n<p>stumbling my speech,<\/p>\n<p>I sit with parties playing Scrabble on the deck<\/p>\n<p>where Indonesian stewards in white jackets<\/p>\n<p>rattle tea-trolleys.<\/p>\n<p><br class=\"spacer_\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Evenings, I watch for that streak of light<\/p>\n<p>as sun plunges into viscous sea.<\/p>\n<p>Then sudden dark.<\/p>\n<p>Familiar stars of my Antipodes<\/p>\n<p>recede southward.<\/p>\n<p>In their place, carved mahogany panels<\/p>\n<p>that fill the walls of staterooms and stairways:<\/p>\n<p>solemn eyes of strange beasts<\/p>\n<p>peer from behind carved vines,<\/p>\n<p>birds in extravagant plumage<\/p>\n<p>perch on the edge of my dreams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fifty years ago today, my husband Tony and I said farewell to family on the quay in Wellington, New Zealand, and walked up the gangplank of the ocean liner Johan Van Oldenbarnevelt, drawn by that migratory urge young New Zealanders have to explore the other side of the world. This poem says a little about [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91,7],"tags":[149,148,417],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=239"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":248,"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239\/revisions\/248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}