Old bones
Ever-covered in newly spun webs
sit within the rusting, grey shelves
of an old postal station
in a corner of the courtyard.
Below each cupboard
traces of organized, synchronized routes
still show
where news of kin and other stuff
was carried to folks now dust to dust.
Sun-bleached bones
of brilliant white,
smooth to the touch,
feathery light,
mark passages of the All But Forgotten
among those to fall
and follow.
Aged antlers of young stag,
shed in endless play
on the windy hillside of pine and scrub,
now rest within.
Pronged and proud
and pleasant to hold.
As is the pronghorn’s horn,
still warm,
when I picked it from a field
of slow-greening grasslands
where the dogs and I roam.
Unlike the skin on the skull
of an old coyote
found curled and alone,
having died on its own,
beside a wash not far from home.
Quietly undetected
and un-ravaged,
by its rather savage setting
… until I came along.
Too big for its shelves,
the spine of an elk
sits on top
with a trove of skulls and bones
needing time to succumb
to the days and the sun.
To the wind and the grit
and the unrelenting clock,
turning sinew and muscles and hide
to naught.
So all that’s left
are skulls and teeth,
ribs and hooves,
a monstrous skeleton
and nature’s great good.
Of lives being lived.
And friends being lost.
Of all of us food
and bones to be tossed
inside the rusty, fading shelves
of the cupboard in a corner of the courtyard.
Dog-eared Stories by anne celano frohna 