Bone Memory Poet *

Bone Memory Poet
dwelling in the
blood marrow caves
telling the ancient stories
of the genetic ancestors,
the primates of days past.

These bones,
these caves,
were grown
so long ago
no one really remembers
but everyone knows
they go further back
than some find comfortable,
to rodents and bacteria,
mud and rocks,
strands of protein
from unknown shores
off the planet.

Bone memory leads us back
to the calcification
of our own skulls,
to the womb,
to the very first vertebra,
back further
to Africa
via our individual paths,
to tiny mammals,
an ice age
and the extinction
of the dinosaurs.

Speak, bone memory,
speak, bone memory,
speak!

Remind us of our
elemental nature,
of calcium and iron,
of our siblinghood
with water
and oxygen,
of our ability
to generate
electrical pulses
and create chemicals.

You've seen
all these things
and encoded them
in mysterious genetic runes
and protein alphabets.

Bone Memory Poet,
reminding us
of our foundations,
of our inner structure,
reminding us
that below
the cleverness and cognition
we are physical entities,
forces of nature.


-Jim DuBois
Jan 6, 2010

* title line from a friend of a friend

Ordinary Days on Planet Earth

The light from the sun
travels to earth every day,
soaks into the ground,
        the dirt,
        the water,
        the rocks,

and the plants burst upwards
in a multitude of colors

and the animals grow
and change
and evolve,
wandering over the land
and in the sea

and the people
are simply starlight
with brains and hands

they create marvelous art and music

they solve incredible problems
with knowledge, ingenuity
and vast imaginations

they invent technology
to communicate with each other
and transform the lives
of billions

and though they
don't always know it,
they are
        striving striving striving
to be good,
and kind
to one another.


-Jim DuBois
Aug 11, 2009

The green champagne bottle

The green champagne bottle
on the side of the road
reminded me of being young.

We used to play in the old junkyards
behind the barn,
collecting the pretty blue bottles,
the miniature bottles,
and the large rusty cans
and scraps of metal
which we couldn’t determine
a past identity for.

We stocked a boulder fortress
on the frontier of our exploration
with such goods,
and wondered how people could have
thrown them out in the first place,
since they were still interesting
and useful.


-Jim DuBois
Nov 3, 2003

Down A Long River (Sept 16, 2008)

There's that far away place,
usually down a long river,
where you can dive off the rocks
and go for a swim,
but you don't know exactly where it is,
or how to get there,
only that it is wonderful and mysterious,
and you've been there many times,
at least in these dreams,
and it might not always be the same place physically,
but it has the same feeling,
the same empty watery feeling,
the same rocky primal feeling,
and sometimes it is the river,
and sometimes there's a powerful tall waterfall you are swept over,
or maybe jump over,
and sometimes it's a huge steamy bathroom
with tons of empty showers running
but it's really the same place somehow
and sometimes the showers are right near a pool
which is by a waterfall
which leads you out into the wilderness
and to that rocky diving spot,
or below an ancient temple,
and you're not sure if it's ominous there or not,
but you remember other times,
in dreams that are similar,
sliding down crazy water slides that go underground,
and swift-currented rivers you are propelled along,
and on and on,
until you wake up.


-Jim DuBois

Mt. Tom (Sept 17, 2005)

Wandering in the remnants of time
the rotting tree trunks
the glacier-strewn rocks

Lost in the aftermath of the past
the decomposing leaves
the cracked basalt boulders

Even the new trees
root
in the bones
of their ancestors


-Jim