Literature
Bones
I read once that technology exists Where isotopes unlock One’s path through the world. Strontium, nitrogen, layered in like tree rings Built into bones and teeth Atoms Vibrating with tales of travels Radiating with explanations of the how and where of humanity… Long after the names and stories have faded away. Those layers That some scientist could decipher Contain Choices Travels Places I have lived and loved The red dust of Oklahoma And the sulphurous water of Missouri And the limestone grit of Kansas backroads And the fertile loam of Germany And the tempermental clay of Indiana And the remains of gardens eaten and enjoyed And pastured livestock devoured The sun that strengthened those bonds And the waters of a hundred places that have washed Over and through me And maybe even more Glittering like gems in my bones, arranged like tree rings Around my marrow. And they may look at this array And say This specimen lived a good long life With access to what she needed And mobility that the ancestors couldn’t fathom And as the last bits of me sparkle in A laboratory, Evidence of a world Long past, I will give up my atoms To a future world Of descendants, freed to Finally rejoin the energy Of the wider universe.