{"id":314771,"date":"2019-12-30T06:06:23","date_gmt":"2019-12-29T20:06:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=314771"},"modified":"2019-12-30T06:06:23","modified_gmt":"2019-12-29T20:06:23","slug":"t-o-a-s-t-telling-old-age-secret-tales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/t-o-a-s-t-telling-old-age-secret-tales\/","title":{"rendered":"T.O.A.S.T.: Telling Old Age Secret Tales"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Island Where My Reasons End<\/strong><br \/>\n\u201c\u2026beneath the plane; that coastline of dim beaches deep in sand stretching indistinguishably all the way to where my reasons end.\u201d<br \/>\n\u2014Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979)<\/p>\n<p>Long distance telephone information is now in cyber space<br \/>\nfrom the Mariana Islands sandy and rocky beaches to Beijing<br \/>\nemail and cell phone messages with electronic bells rapidly race<br \/>\nso everywhere night and day you can hear cellphones ring.<br \/>\n\u201c Who know where the time goes\u201d sings Joni Mitchell<br \/>\nthe coconut telegraph rings all around the island<br \/>\nour arguments shared with so many its hard to tell<br \/>\nwhy my primos and compadres are all laughing and smiling?<br \/>\nOff island for months when delayed by two typhoons<br \/>\nwhats the real reason you have gone away<br \/>\nwhere have you been the past two full moons<br \/>\nwill you be back for the fiesta by next Sunday.<br \/>\nAs I fly off island I think I see you on a beach below<br \/>\nIs it it for real how I feel?\u00a0 I miss you. Do you know?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>New Year\u2019s New Fears New Tears<\/strong><br \/>\n\u201c\u2026Tears of rage, tears of grief, why must I always be the\u00a0thief, come to me now, you know we\u2019re so alone and\u00a0life is brief.\u201d<br \/>\n\u2014chorus for song Tears of Rage by The Band.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nTears of joy for many a young girl and boy<br \/>\ntears of pain for many with problems from aging<br \/>\nyoung adults enthralled with their latest cyber toy<br \/>\nelders depressed as limited mobility keeps raging.<br \/>\nNew fears for our parents and many friends with cancer<br \/>\ndiabetes and dialysis concerns and care increase<br \/>\nnew fears of political leaders who have no answer<br \/>\nas international relations head away from peace.<br \/>\nThis \u00a0new year is really not much different from the old<br \/>\nand Asian new year or Spring Festival is yet to come<br \/>\nthere are many new fears and failures soon to be told<br \/>\nbe like Little Jack Horner get into it and pull out a plum.<br \/>\nThere\u2019s a tear in my beer and I\u2019m missing you my dear<br \/>\nWith more reasons for tears under a sky blue and clear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Island Where My Reasons End \u201c\u2026beneath the plane; that coastline of dim beaches deep in&#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":[],"class_list":["post-314771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314771","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=314771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314771\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}