Bone and Pigment

There have always been the dead.
Paleontologists still sift fragments,
find and catalogue bones from times
when memory was made of flesh
and withered even as the body
shed all but its mineral wealth.

Sepulchral rites, a portrait, a history,
confuse immortality and dust,
embalm the empty vessel,
exchange swirls of pigment for blood,
words for breath.

Bits of ourselves dance in the wind,
collect in the seams of the earth.

A child laughs, then turns to go.