Human,
we heard you coming –
the tangled, grumbling footfalls
drumming the still soft ground,
exhales trailing in clouds.
You stopped,
crouched near,
staring
naming
another’s
bones
nested in goldenseal,
bunchberry, moss;
these long metatarsals,
phalanges like knobs,
flesh free,
hare furred,
whiskered in frost.
Stories sift between us –
your own
death
mirrored,
dust across our
bones.
We find no
shame
in death, or decay –
in tales of control, lost.
Life
wins
every
time.
Nameless it teems, shifting
unbroken,
a perfect reflection,
always.
Life
is
yours.
That clear light –
whirling within, and all around us –
that is what we see.
Shame is just dirt