Whose bones are these?

Posted on 2021/04/24 by Bartholomew Barker

For today’s prompt from Robert Lee Brewer’s Write Better Poetry blog, write a question poem. There are a few different ways to come at this one. First, make the title of your poem a question and use the poem to answer it. Or make the title the answer and the poem the question. Or end your poem on a question.

Whose bones are these—
delicate as toothpicks
in last year’s leaves?

Did anyone mourn this death
from natural causes—
probably violent?

Is there a motherless
pup, cub or kit
wandering these woods?

I feel the urge to dig
a small grave— the futile
gesture of a primate

who spends too much time
walking in cemeteries.

About Bartholomew Barker

Bartholomew Barker is one of the organizers of Living Poetry, a collection of poets and poetry lovers in the Triangle region of North Carolina. His first poetry collection, Wednesday Night Regular, written in and about strip clubs, was published in 2013. His second, Milkshakes and Chilidogs, a chapbook of food inspired poetry was served in 2017. He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2021. Born and raised in Ohio, studied in Chicago, he worked in Connecticut for nearly twenty years before moving to Hillsborough where he makes money as a computer programmer to fund his poetry habit.
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8 Responses to Whose bones are these?

  1. Cassa Bassa says:
    2021/04/24 at 21:11

    You walked in an archeologist’s mind.

    Liked by 2 people

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  2. JeanMarie says:
    2021/04/25 at 01:37

    Aw….

    And now I have “Circle of Life” from The Lion King in my head!

    Liked by 1 person

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  3. Lisa Tomey says:
    2021/04/25 at 07:04

    write about these bones in a shallow grave, just so we can see there was a soul, when they unearth these remains-in your words, perhaps they will know that someone cared, enough to celebrate, the sacredness of life – that just came to mind and it appears that what was done, by nature, as was intended. Thank you for honoring this life.

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