We drift though the back Fields,

father and daughter, weekend visitors,

strolling where I was raised.

In the shallow folds of the wood,

bones flare up in the sun

like struck match-heads,

picked clean and scattered

across the open meadow.

The child knows we can never

put these pieces back together,

reassemble the young heifer lost

while calving, death within a death.

The girl's eyes announce that we

shall not leave the unburied

littered among brambles and briars,

shadows of the leafless oak grove.

Because sorrow's springs are the same

forever, we gather the fragments

and build a drumlin of bones,

halcyon home to the wind,

or shelter for any wayward bird,

wings beating like a heart

behind a wall of bare ribcage.