Bone-Meals

Bones and their ash remain,
retain and nourish
the under-croft, the terrain.
The meadow green.
Bones replant.

The dead feed the living,
and the living cut down the living
to feed themselves.
The world must eat itself.
This is called husbandry and farming.
It is also called shopping and carrying,
killing, and butchery.
Those that eat only vegetables
also partake.

A grave is a half-way house,
Urns are waiting rooms.
The soil nurses bones,
worms wheel the earth towards the sky
for its blessing.
Osseous clouds seed nations.

What follows bone and bone ash
becomes the crop,
the tomorrow-cart laden
with its bone harvest.
Bone-flowers scent the air.

Bones underpin bridges and wingspans,
citadels of stone.
Bone dust scaffolds every stem and branch.

Bones in tombs and catacombs
are food for the larder.
A storage for generations.

Stars shed their elemental dust,
becoming bone fodder.
Bone ash is the genesis
of all unknown beginnings.