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Bone Suite
     by Austin Holmes

 

Staring at these bones

in the utter rhythm of sun

they seem inevitable,

but only might have been.

In the Montana mountains

scanning a meadow for barbed wire

I stumble upon a half-devoured carcass

a meal not yet completed.

I suddenly feel

not so alone in that vastness.

I look to the spaces between the trees

for eyes in the dark night,

there is rain

and mud,

obscure shapes

of their parietal art

hovering in scorched shadows,

jackrabbit jawbones

not quite half-moons.

The underside of pelvis bones

shaped like owls,

these bones and bones and bones,

bleached fragments on the edge,

stiller than the breath

of stone.

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First published in Columbia Journal.  

 

I’ve always had a fascination with bones and wrote this after some time spent in Centennial Valley.  There were many moments of vulnerability in that land, both physical and emotional.  Sometimes it takes feeling small in vast spaces to understand that, as Jim Harrison said, “To have reverence for life, you must have reverence for death.”

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AUSTIN HOLMES lives in southern Utah, where he spends life with his beloved partner and their dog.  He contemplates what he can and falls in love with the sky daily anew.

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