{"id":4777,"date":"2009-11-07T10:40:56","date_gmt":"2009-11-07T10:40:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8000\/\/?p=4777"},"modified":"2009-11-07T10:40:56","modified_gmt":"2009-11-07T10:40:56","slug":"poem-by-peter-schneider-the-thumb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peter.murmann.me\/?p=4777","title":{"rendered":"Poem by Peter Schneider: The Thumb"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><div class=\"content-image-wrapper\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"107\" height=\"143\" src=\"https:\/\/peter.murmann.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/thumb.jpeg\" class=\"content-image-block\" alt=\"image\" style=\"max-width: 100%; height: auto; display: block; margin: 15px auto;\" \/><\/div>\n<p>In a nanosecond David lost his thumb,<\/p>\n<p>the one his mother painted<\/p>\n<p>with pine pitch when he was four<\/p>\n<p>to keep him from forever sucking it.<\/p>\n<p>Unable to distinguish human flesh<\/p>\n<p>the McCormick silo filler<\/p>\n<p>sliced it off&#8212;<\/p>\n<p>nail, bone, knuckle&#8212;<\/p>\n<p>and blew it skyward<\/p>\n<p>an ounce of humanity<\/p>\n<p>in a thousand tons of silage.<\/p>\n<p>Taken by surprise<\/p>\n<p>David suppressed the truth.<\/p>\n<p>Before the rush of blood<\/p>\n<p>he held up the stump <\/p>\n<p>saw the clean cut<\/p>\n<p>grey bone marrow visible<\/p>\n<p>and thrust it in his mouth<\/p>\n<p>where the memory<\/p>\n<p>of childhood security lay.<\/p>\n<p>Then he swore,<\/p>\n<p>tears rushing to his eyes, and ran <\/p>\n<p>holding the stump with his good hand<\/p>\n<p>blood oozing between his fingers.<\/p>\n<p>Joe, a huge bulk of a man<\/p>\n<p>and a constant neighbor,<\/p>\n<p>jumped from his wagon<\/p>\n<p>caught David like a child<\/p>\n<p>held him to his chest<\/p>\n<p>not intimidated by blood<\/p>\n<p>or the tears of a grown man. <\/p>\n<p><b>From the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.elabs7.com\/functions\/message_view.html?mid=886897&amp;mlid=499&amp;siteid=20130&amp;uid=d5a3fd6c01\">Wrinter&#8217;s Almanac.<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a nanosecond David lost his thumb, the one his mother painted with pine pitch when he was four to keep him from forever sucking <a href=\"https:\/\/peter.murmann.me\/?p=4777\" class=\"read-more-link\">[Read More]<\/a> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/localhost:8000\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/thumb.jpeg\" alt=\"image\" width=\"107\" height=\"143\" \/><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diary"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peter.murmann.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peter.murmann.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peter.murmann.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peter.murmann.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peter.murmann.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/peter.murmann.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4777\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peter.murmann.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peter.murmann.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peter.murmann.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}