Saturday, October 21, 2017

Weekend Poem

"Bones"

We only know our bones by feel
Like skeleton keys on a shelf in the dark
And the locked rooms they reveal.
An invisible frame propping soft flesh:
Here is my ulna, my femur, my iliac crest.
Ashes to ashes we all fall down
Not as puddles that seep into your heart
But collapsed into stacks of calcified sticks
Like abandoned burned out campfires found
On early morning walks in the wood;
Slivers of gray smoke spiralling
Up through clawed branches.
But bones aren’t made of steel
Bend them too much or fall too far
The bones may break their seal
And expose the hidden red marrow,
The embers beneath the ashes
The soft soil of your blood.
So set those bones straight
Set them now---don’t wait until tomorrow---
And may all your broken ones heal

10/21/17

1 comment:

Oldfoolrn said...

Wow..you are bicultural-general surgery and orthopedics.