{"id":1848,"date":"2026-06-03T05:43:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T05:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=1848"},"modified":"2026-06-11T01:08:53","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T01:08:53","slug":"countdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=1848","title":{"rendered":"Countdown"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<pre class=\"wp-block-verse\">Countdown 5, 4, 3, 2, 1<br>we're in the home stretch<br>final days of school<br>humidity and heat on the rise<br>homework and test prep on the couch<br>before a quick dip at the pool<br><br>Balancing acts continue<br>the ebb and flow of work, <br>school and play crash<br>like waves on the shore<br><br>Riding in on the tides<br>are an onslaught of special events:<br>Wacky Hair Day at dawn<br>Foosball at work to celebrate FIFA,<br>chilled grocery store bouquets at dusk;<br>tuxedo shirts and ankle-length <br>black skirts at night<br>for year-end concerts<br>in the packed auditorium<br><br>On the cusp of something, <br>change, or is it freedom?<br>Everything feels a little blurry, <br><em>frenetic<\/em><br>is it all the sugar <br>in the year-end treats<br>or is it the thrum <br>of chaos vibrating all about?<br>So much to cram in <br>to the next three weeks<br>how to get through it all?<br><br>You've got this.<br>5, 4, 3, 2, 1,<br>blast<br>off!<br><br><br><\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cCountdown,\u201d written Wednesday, June 03, poem 154 in a series of 365 poems written by Diana Ludwick in 2026. Photo, &#8220;Wacky Hair Day,&#8221; by Diana Ludwick (c) 2026. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1869,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,552,311,2,551],"tags":[1326,1331,1328,999,1333,1114,1337,1327,1336,1335,798,1345,1329,1330,1339,1338,1334,1340,228,1341,1332,1343,1342],"class_list":["post-1848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2026-poetry-challenge","category-faux-lament","category-generational","category-poems","category-unserious","tag-5-4-3-2-1","tag-auditorium","tag-blast-off","tag-blurry","tag-bouquets","tag-concert","tag-couch","tag-countdown","tag-dawn","tag-day","tag-dusk","tag-ebb-and-flow","tag-freedom","tag-frenetic","tag-home-stretch","tag-humidity","tag-night","tag-pool","tag-school","tag-sugar","tag-tuxedo","tag-wacky-hair-day","tag-youve-got-this"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1848"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1870,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1848\/revisions\/1870"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}