Connie Jordan Green
These Bones at Eighty-Four
These bones grow brittle
as we age, the limber shock-
absorbing joints of our youth
now gnarled knuckles that
scarcely grip a pencil. And
what of fish bones, skeletons
thin as a wish gone to rest
in mile-deep beds, eons of
deposits morphing into silt.
And birds, holdovers from
the age of dinosaurs, bones so fine
the wind tosses them like confetti
toward the rising sun. Calcium,
copper, iron, boron, phosphorous,
magnesium, zinc, potassium—
stardust seeded in this body we wear
that day by day wends
its way toward the heavens.
Savings
Into our basket small spears of okra,
scarcely beyond bloom; peppers, lobed
at the base, a teasing taste for tomorrow’s
pot of chili. We hoard these offerings,
coin against the coming winter.
Once these slight gifts mattered, when we
were young and just beginning, when a forkful
of hay to the cows was a portion earned by our day
in the field, currency of sweat and muscle’s effort.
Now freezer holds beans, peas, broccoli, shelves
the jewels of peaches and beets. Still we gather,
spread fruit to ripen on table tops, while cold
creeps along house foundation, finds floor boards
where we stand, juice of the last tomato on our chins.
Connie Jordan Green lives on a farm in Loudon County, Tennessee. Her publications include award-winning novels for young people, The War at Home and Emmy (Margaret McElderry imprint of Macmillan, reissued by Iris Publishing); poetry chapbooks, Slow Children Playing and Regret Comes to Tea (Finishing Line Press); poetry collections, Household Inventory, winner of the Brick Road Poetry Press Award, and Darwin’s Breath (Iris Press). Her poetry has been nominated for Pushcart awards. conniejordangreen.com