Young bones are usually bold,
old bones just feel the cold.
Walking is easy for young bones,
while standing is often uneasy
for those with ageing bones.
Young bones bend but old bones
become brittle and easier to break.
Bones can calcify and excessive
strain often leads to back-ache
but the same bones are found in
peasants as those sitting on thrones.
Bones make marrow which
replenishes blood and there are
bent bones, metacarpal bones
and straight bones enabling movement.
Bones can, eventually, outlive their hosts,
lingering buried in the ground like ghosts
until embraced by rock and turned
to stone, fossilizing memories
and reminders of past existence,
silent witnesses to lives led and dead.
The last residual of being.
JEREMY GADD is an Australian author and poet whose work has appeared in periodicals and literary magazines in Australia, the USA, England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Canada, New Zealand, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Indonesia, Malaya and India. As well as articles, novels and short stories, he has published five collections of poetry, the most recent being ‘Driving into the Dark’, a selection of 60 previously published poems (Ginninderra Press, Adelaide, 2022). He has also had plays performed and has written dialogue for a dance performed at the Sydney Opera House. He has Master of Arts and PhD degrees from the University of New England and he lives and writes in an old Federation era house overlooking Botany Bay, the birthplace of Modern Australia.
