{"id":58807,"date":"2026-03-16T05:54:32","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T09:54:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/wordpress\/?p=58807"},"modified":"2026-03-16T10:00:52","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T14:00:52","slug":"minutes-between-city-and-forest-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/wordpress\/poetry\/minutes-between-city-and-forest-4\/","title":{"rendered":"[minutes between city and forest #4]"},"content":{"rendered":"<script>\nfunction showWarning_enUS() {\n    var content_warning_list = document.getElementById(\"content-warning-enUS\");\n\n    if (content_warning_list.style.display === \"none\") {\n        content_warning_list.style.display = \"block\";\n    } else {\n        content_warning_list.style.display = \"none\";\n    }\n}\n<\/script><div lang=\"en-US\" dir=\"ltr\" class=\"content-warning-container-ltr\"><p><strong class=\"content-warning-title\">Content warning:<\/strong><br\/><button onclick=\"showWarning_enUS()\">Show warnings<\/button><\/p><div class=\"content-warning\" id=\"content-warning-enUS\" style=\"display: none;\" ><p>This page contains: <\/p><ul><li>No content warnings<\/li><\/ul><\/div><br\/><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">A screech owl startles the angels into flight\u2014: a whirlwind, a frayed rapture. Our guts roil; phones bleat alarms as angels scatter and reconvene. Wingbeats, wingbeats. They whisper to one another in the dark. Starlight pierces the occasional feather. Can angels be embarrassed? A ruffling of branches as they resettle for the night. We dare not ask why they are here. They murmur to one another until again the owl cries and again they rise. We give up on sleep in our corner of the city. A silence grows around our homes\u2014deeper for our knowing how easily it might break.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em><br \/>\n[Editor\u2019s Note: Publication of this poem was made possible by a donation from Susan Jessen during our annual Kickstarter.]<\/em><\/p>\n<br class=\"clear_both\"\/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A ruffling of branches as they resettle for the night. We dare not ask why they are here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[730],"class_list":["post-58807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","tag-no-content-warning"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p82q22-fiv","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58807"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58868,"href":"https:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58807\/revisions\/58868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}