I. One Song for Old Bones
Father, come home.
The rat gnaws my bone.
The mouse chews my hair.
Under my ear sleeps the flagstone;
My eyes turn nowhere.
Father, it is a wide world.
The wind is cold.
Cold is the mist of morningtime
When dawn is born to grow old -
Cold as the turning tide.
Mother eases in the lizard´s couch;
Sister hums in the oak crotch.
Brother has sailed to murder time
With a cane handle; the head of a crutch.
I stay behind.
My socket is sprung
Wide as the sea´s life is long.
White shall my bone dust be.
My jaw falls with song.
The spider toils inside me.
VI. Epitaph in a Minor Key
Willowwillow,
Weep for me
Buried neath
The blood root tree;
Socket clogged by
Digging root;
Nostril pierced
By
Seedling shoot;
Rocks, miasmas
In my breast -
Willowill
O
Guard my rest.
