{"id":4156,"date":"2020-09-20T10:48:33","date_gmt":"2020-09-20T17:48:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/pastis\/?p=4156"},"modified":"2020-09-20T10:48:33","modified_gmt":"2020-09-20T17:48:33","slug":"biota","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/pastis\/biota\/","title":{"rendered":"Biota"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Raised with roaches,<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\"><br \/>\n<\/span>I warmed to the tropics,<br \/>\nits trellis tendrils and sleepy<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\"><br \/>\n<\/span>plants, its hosts of species<br \/>\nfrom boyhood\u2019s lush biota.<\/p>\n<p>The stench of sweet coffee<br \/>\nblossoms evoked the gardenia<br \/>\nof the past, june bugs thwacking<br \/>\nagainst the rusted screen<br \/>\nmesh, praying mantes.<\/p>\n<p>What grew there grows<br \/>\nalong the Gulf. You get hook<br \/>\nworms through your feet, keep<br \/>\neyes peeled for scorpions<br \/>\nand venomous snakes,<br \/>\nlive with with ubiquitous<br \/>\nitch, scratch, bite.<\/p>\n<p>Torpid after morning rain,<br \/>\nyou draw in spores, as<br \/>\nfrom a lover\u2019s yawning<br \/>\nmouth, the familiar dank waft<br \/>\nof seeds sprouting into rot.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">*<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><em>&#8220;Biota&#8221; expresses my wonderment when I found myself in Africa in 1967 and discovered that the flora and fauna of my semi-tropical boyhood along the Texas Gulf Coast merged into that of the tropics proper.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Raised with roaches, I warmed to the tropics, its trellis tendrils and sleepy plants, its hosts of species from boyhood\u2019s lush biota. The stench of sweet coffee blossoms evoked the gardenia of the past, june bugs thwacking against the rusted screen mesh, praying mantes. What grew there grows along the Gulf. You get hook worms &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/pastis\/biota\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Biota&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[87,41,8,57],"class_list":["post-4156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","tag-africa","tag-flowers","tag-memories","tag-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/pastis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/pastis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/pastis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/pastis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/pastis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4156"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/pastis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4157,"href":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/pastis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4156\/revisions\/4157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/pastis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/pastis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/pastis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}