Reflection

 

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

on the mirror.