Someone once said that in the beginning were light and sound. But here in

this valley it is quiet and dark.

It is still as death and empty as thirst.

I wonder about the bones. About what they were before the valley, before the

earth, before the sun leached away their life, before they lay down.

What last heavy thing was put upon their shoulders? What last piece was

taken to lay them low, ready to undress their naked bones?

Were they like paper, like tissue? Did they feel like they had been dug out?

Did they remember when they felt anything at all, long before the heaviness

had settled in?

 

Did they remember when they used to glow?

 

Oh the exquisite sound of life, the lovely ache of caring

Oh the time when you wanted to dance when you weren’t filled with lead and

the unrepentant uselessness of all endeavors.

When those were gone and they were untethered did they wonder why they

didn’t just dissolve?

I wonder if in the valley they knew that it was death’s shadow.

Those bones who used to move and shake and who were colours and

sounds-

When the wrongness of it all the hopelessness was poured into the empty

packet of them, is that the moment; is that when they lay down and can we

even blame them-

Can these bones live?

Do the bones still carry this apathy, as close as skin?

Can these bones live?

How can we ask what is already dead to dance with the spirit?

Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up

from your graves, O my people…

What can stir us when we are deep in the earth, where we long to stay,

already swallowed?

 

Perhaps it’s the memory of light and sound

And perhaps it’s

breath.

The promise of the spirit. The promise of life.

And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring

you up from your graves, O my people.

I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live.