by Valda Jackson
“…for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”*
How I feel
It’s Thursday 14th
I’ve had an evening and one half a day to settle.
To think.
We passed around human remains.
I held a person’s skull in my hands.
Felt its roundness,
toughness. It’s weight.
And texture, small pits and dents.
Like a thing hand-made, modelled in clay. Sculpted ivory.
The scientific stuff of facts and supposition float in the air.
While I, cupping my hand atop the crown, marvel at it’s size,
it’s density.
Compact.
Handled.
And so, so small.
I compare its scale to those of the living breathing people around me.
There is much mass in flesh and fluids, skin and hair.
Weight and substance.
Volume in breath…
life.
And then,
one small piece of rib. Fragments. Dust.
A sprinkling escapes its plastic entombment and remains
caught
in the fold of my open book.
The centerfold.
Bones returned to boxes.
Boxed up.
Were they labeled “fragile”?
Or “handle with care”?
Handle with care.
And we
We did
We all
handled with care
Were they purchased?
Bought? These bones?
Again.
Valued more now?
Or less
than
when
covered with flesh
and fluids,
wrapped in skin, and hair and so much
more mass, volume, weight and substance
With breath and life that register hurt and feel pain
yet roughly
handled.
Brutally rough
Now though, valued
in different measure,
handled with care
Handled with care
And Fragments and Dust Remains in a crevice
Rubbing my finger slowly down the inner spine
I feel the gritty uneven texture of ground bone.
“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken:
sister,
brother.
Ancestor
I hesitate to turn the page.
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* Genesis 3:19 King James version