unpredictablebijou
Peril!
- Joined
- Apr 21, 2007
- Posts
- 5,507
#12
Bones as a metaphor
The first full skeleton I saw out there
was in the second year, and what drew my eye
were the small blue butterflies
fluttering around the spine. Some raccoon
overtaken during winter, now bleached
but still ragged enough
for the small eaters to find scraps.
I hadn't seen these butterflies much
they seem to come out only for corpses,
becoming small blossoms, beating blue hearts
on the white vine.
we cannot feel our own bones.
as essential as they are, they remain
invisible, tangible only when broken
like the heart, like the mind.
The earth has bones
and flesh. Here we know a sandstone spine
rippling with lime, sheathed with clay flesh
and threaded with locust roots.
In Las Vegas, the bones
are hard under the valley
and they ripple, when the new suburbs
are blasted, shaking miles away,
a whipcrack that collapses walls
at a distance. I set the tuning fork
against your shoulder
and you hear the tone. Bones travel,
they conduct, send messages
Teeth, fingernails, the bones
outside the skin, these are the trunks
of trees, calcified, thrust above ground
thrust out, evidence of the seeds
of time passing. We are dust
gathered up, into which god breathes,
his mouth against ours. God fills,
and Time steps up to empty
inhaling against our lips.
I am instructed to imagine
the way all bones become dust.
My own hand, my teeth without a mouth
the layers washing away
melting, assisted by blue butterflies.
.
Bones as a metaphor
The first full skeleton I saw out there
was in the second year, and what drew my eye
were the small blue butterflies
fluttering around the spine. Some raccoon
overtaken during winter, now bleached
but still ragged enough
for the small eaters to find scraps.
I hadn't seen these butterflies much
they seem to come out only for corpses,
becoming small blossoms, beating blue hearts
on the white vine.
we cannot feel our own bones.
as essential as they are, they remain
invisible, tangible only when broken
like the heart, like the mind.
The earth has bones
and flesh. Here we know a sandstone spine
rippling with lime, sheathed with clay flesh
and threaded with locust roots.
In Las Vegas, the bones
are hard under the valley
and they ripple, when the new suburbs
are blasted, shaking miles away,
a whipcrack that collapses walls
at a distance. I set the tuning fork
against your shoulder
and you hear the tone. Bones travel,
they conduct, send messages
Teeth, fingernails, the bones
outside the skin, these are the trunks
of trees, calcified, thrust above ground
thrust out, evidence of the seeds
of time passing. We are dust
gathered up, into which god breathes,
his mouth against ours. God fills,
and Time steps up to empty
inhaling against our lips.
I am instructed to imagine
the way all bones become dust.
My own hand, my teeth without a mouth
the layers washing away
melting, assisted by blue butterflies.
.
Last edited:
<------- look. A smiley thing. 
I didn't think anyone had noticed to tell you the truth
