Bones

The earth is littered with the dead.

The stones beneath my boots

On this half-demolished hill

Were once alive, and I am here,

Pick in hand, to pay my respects.

I pluck from the gravel a shell

Perfect as the day it fell to the

Floor of the sea and lay waiting

Four hundred million years for me

To run my fingers along its ridges

Feeling the past in the present

As if the pulse of time only beat

And did not move forward.

This fall’s acorn is as precious,

But the bulldozer holds nothing

Sacred.  I pocket you both,

Bones of the world, and move on.

2/5/2023