SEVEN SHARDS OF BONE

Only one copy of the flame-bound

book of ash, held in both hands

like a flake of granite sprung from earth’s core,

like scorched quartz, these bones’

seventy annular rings

enshrined in their dark wood box,

awaiting close perusal

when my own sad marrow cools:

father—

big book, wordless.

Each life lands in this world,

its rind of flesh so soon decayed,

maybe these bones, sunk deep

with all that death won’t gnaw,

gird up the ancient soil

which cannot bear much more.

This wooden boat, packed with grief’s cargo

and bobbing at my pulse,

shuts tight amid the dusky mist,

slips from my arms, my voice,

drifting toward vast primal night.

In my veins the burst heart

tears its seal of custom,

and shameless I raise the lid

as if turning to a page,

my cramped, numb arm clutching

at the mound of white-blazed

shards and dust,

still warm as life

after death’s cold fire,

to snatch these fragments.

Like sudden rain, earth patters down

to the grave’s soundless night.

Clenched in my hands, seven shards

chafe their spectral glow.

I pass silent through this clamorous world,

the last look on his seamed, stiffening face

the arc of an arrow

speeding from one hopeless shore

to the other,

farther than my longest reach.