<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Rose of Jericho I am waiting for water; In a home not built for foliage The night I thought I became a man Since then I have broken my skin Hardened my bones into a holding container I am a desert fist waiting for water; that held the first break of water, <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Caleb Femi<\/strong> was the Young People’s Laureate for London (2016-2018) and is an English Literature teacher. Caleb is featured in the Dazed 100 list of the next generation shaping youth culture. He has been commissioned by the Tate Modern, The Royal Society for Literature, St Paul’s Cathedral, the BBC and the Guardian<\/em>. \u00a0http:\/\/www.calebfemi.com\/<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rose of Jericho I am waiting for water; do not blame my Father though he made me a curling spine of dried roots. In a home not built for foliage he did his fatherly duty to pass on only what is necessary to survive. The night I thought I became a man he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[137,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2018-poetry-picks","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16301"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17072,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16301\/revisions\/17072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n
\ndo not blame my Father though he made me
\na curling spine of dried roots.<\/p>\n
\nhe did his fatherly duty to pass on
\nonly what is necessary to survive.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n
\nhe handed me a drink of warning:
\na closed hand holds no water.<\/em><\/p>\n
\ninto soil good for worms,
\ngood for willow trees.<\/p>\n
\nto become the bucket my grandmother
\nwould put outside to collect rain.<\/p>\n
\ndo not blame my father.
\nHe was not the stretch of coast<\/p>\n
\nmy mother spilling into labour
\nas the nurses shout germinate, germinate!<\/em><\/p>\n