Remains

by Janet Ruhe-Schoen

The body that was like a tree

is fine powder, millenniums old.

It’s dry earth now

sifted through the fingers

of an exploring being

from a planet whose colors

we never named. Light that shot

through bones falls with the dust

from the alien palm, shines

for a moment on the desert air,

and the being, without knowing

why, composes a poem.