People of Bone and Water (poem)

Here is an audio recording of “People of Bone and Water” read by Jane Piirto, who wrote the poem.

“It froze ice a forearm thick, it dropped snow a ski pole deep.” Runo 30

People of Bone and Water

People of bone and water,
fast-food eaters, pizza orderers
did you see, in the storm, how everything stopped?
bent the plows? Did you share the keen blow of snow?
like broken glass or small nails, how air shattered
hurled order into wind, threw peace into melée?

You emerged to a paradise, the world made new
the white cloven hills, slick ice on the roads
indeed eden was yours, the silence and stalemate
forced you to look to your souls in blue shadows
trees against banks and drifts
to kiss the necessity of languor, to recline resting.

In the end creation domineers in implacable thrust
the sun framed in droplets, the cool white full moon
the day trembling and still in vestiges of furies and bolts.

Publication history:

Piirto, J. (1996). People of Bone and Water Advanced Development, 7.

(1996). Between the Memory and the Experience.
(1996). Broadsides from the Tacoma Arts Commission Readers’ Series.
(2005). Journeys to Sacred Places. Ashland, OH: Sisu Press.