{"id":312929,"date":"2019-11-28T06:00:19","date_gmt":"2019-11-27T20:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=312929"},"modified":"2019-11-28T06:00:19","modified_gmt":"2019-11-27T20:00:19","slug":"t-o-a-s-t-tasting-oranges-and-salmon-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/t-o-a-s-t-tasting-oranges-and-salmon-together\/","title":{"rendered":"T.O.A.S.T.: Tasting Oranges And Salmon\u00a0Together"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The following poems were in the Saipan Tribune during Thanksgiving week in 2017. Before we say grace for just a few\u00a0minutes, let us\u00a0contemplate world hunger and think about what we can do to help. After all, \u201cWe Are the World.\u201d<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n<strong>A Thanksgiving Breath Before Death\u00a0<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>My senior citizen spin on Shakespeare\u2019s sonnet 73<\/em><br \/>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<br \/>\nI behold my time of death in some eternal cold<br \/>\nlimbs lame, knees shot, fingers gnarled and froze<br \/>\nmost of my songs sung, teenage tales all told<br \/>\nrequiem for my frame cawed by a murder of crows<br \/>\non sea cliffs I welcome the coming of night<br \/>\nwatch the moon slowly rise in the east<br \/>\nand darkness as the moon slips out of sight<br \/>\nno worries about eternal night in the least<br \/>\nwhat is left of my tropical life is glowing coals<br \/>\na low *tangantangan fire of burning embers<br \/>\nnow it is heaven or hell and roasting souls<br \/>\nThanksgiving has life way beyond Novembers<br \/>\ngone for good now age saps life and strength<br \/>\nmy love for all that lives will stay the length<br \/>\n\u00a0(* tangantangan is \u201ca large bush\u00a0\u00a0that proliferates<br \/>\non many of the high islands in Micronesia. Good<br \/>\n\u00a0for cattle feed and fuel.\u201d Chamorro-English Dictionary)<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n<strong>From Great Pie To Grilled Octopi<\/strong><br \/>\nMy mouth waters when I can smell an apple rhubarb pie<br \/>\nso it was when I a child so is it now when I am wider<br \/>\nso be it when my eyes can not tell a spider from a fly<br \/>\nor octopus from squid and what it tastes like inside there.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n<strong>Fina\u2019denne\u2019 or Tabasco Sauce<\/strong><br \/>\npika fina\u2019denne\u2019 or Tabasco sauce<br \/>\nget some mannok take your pick<br \/>\nsome red rice and make it quick<br \/>\nso many depend upon a hot pepper sauce<br \/>\nsplashed without restraint on some fried chicken<\/p>\n<p>Giving Thanks on an Island Coral Road<br \/>\nright now a rooster is crowing<br \/>\nmany hours before dawn<br \/>\na schizzy fighting rooster<br \/>\nmoonlight on my neighbors lawn<br \/>\nright now streaming radio<br \/>\na channel of classical baroque<br \/>\nharpsichords and lutes play<br \/>\nflorescent spiral lights broke<br \/>\nright now fresh deer meat<br \/>\nfrom my oldest adopted son<br \/>\npurple Philippine eggplant<br \/>\nlarge Chinese squash just one<br \/>\nlight rain from the monsoon<br \/>\nbanana leaves play a soft tune.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Joey &#8216;Pepe Batbon&#8217; Connolly, Special to the Saipan Tribune<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Joey \u201cPepe Batbon\u201d Connolly is a retired teacher and has been named a poet laureate of Tinian. He has taught English in CNMI public schools for the past 30 years. He has also taught in Alaska, New Orleans, and Las Vegas.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The following poems were in the Saipan Tribune during Thanksgiving week in 2017. Before we&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[26,304,38,19118],"class_list":["post-312929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","tag-cnmi","tag-las-vegas","tag-saipan-tribune","tag-tabasco-sauce"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312929\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}