{"id":62378,"date":"2025-08-31T07:56:35","date_gmt":"2025-08-31T13:56:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/?p=62378"},"modified":"2025-08-31T07:56:35","modified_gmt":"2025-08-31T13:56:35","slug":"jane-kenyon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/?p=62378","title":{"rendered":"Jane Kenyon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>OTHERWISE<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>by Jane Kenyon<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I got out of bed<br \/>\non two strong legs.<br \/>\nIt might have been<br \/>\notherwise. I ate<br \/>\ncereal, sweet<br \/>\nmilk, ripe, flawless<br \/>\npeach. It might<br \/>\nhave been otherwise.<br \/>\nI took the dog uphill<br \/>\nto the birch wood.<br \/>\nAll morning I did<br \/>\nthe work I love.<br \/>\nAt noon I lay down<br \/>\nwith my mate. It might<br \/>\nhave been otherwise.<br \/>\nWe ate dinner together<br \/>\nat a table with silver<br \/>\ncandlesticks. It might<br \/>\nhave been otherwise.<br \/>\nI slept in a bed<br \/>\nin a room with paintings<br \/>\non the walls, and<br \/>\nplanned another day<br \/>\njust like this day.<br \/>\nBut one day, I know,<br \/>\nit will be otherwise.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Tell the whole truth. Don\u2019t be lazy, don\u2019t be afraid. Close the critic out when you are drafting something new. Take chances in the interest of clarity of emotion.<\/p>\n<p>Be a good steward of your gifts. Protect your time. Feed your inner life. Avoid too much noise. Read good books, have good sentences in your ears. Be by yourself as often as you can. Walk. Take the phone off the hook. Work regular hours.<\/p>\n<p>Jane Kenyon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; OTHERWISE by Jane Kenyon I got out of bed on two strong legs. It might have been otherwise. I ate cereal, sweet milk, ripe, flawless peach. It might have been otherwise. I took the dog uphill to the birch wood. All morning I did the work I love. At noon I lay down with &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/?p=62378\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Jane Kenyon<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[134,197],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62378"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62379,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62378\/revisions\/62379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}