Work Text:
A skeleton is a living thing;
it breathes.
it is whole within itself
connected to the self without:
there is no dead thing within a living body.
A Nation’s bones are earth and stone,
drought and water,
and living still,
as all things live
that grow and change,
as all things will
that still remain.
Support
Here: a skeleton, rigid strength
Here: a mountain range
unbending stone, insurmountable, that cups the edges of a land,
Ink on maps, set down by hands
that have no power over the earth’s shape.
Here: a Nation;
nothing without bedrock.
upheld, a scaffolding of stone.
Here: stone at the roots of mountains,
stone building fortresses,
stone building roads.
a Nation, begotten, built.
Here: a skeleton
stone without and earth within,
fields tilled,
foundations firm,
lives ever returning to the land itself.
a skeleton
to encompass all the rest,
to carry the weight,
dictate its shape,
living stone uncrumbling.
Motion
A skeleton is a living thing.
living is an act of movement,
change in position over time,
change.
positive deformation cannot be accomplished without rigidity.
the old stone is pulled,
the joints break loose.
Strength is defined by several metrics.
strength is defined by what a material can withstand, unbowed and unbroken,
by the load it can carry,
what it can hold for itself
without being crushed,
what it can suffer,
can face head on;
by how it can be stretched,
torn self from self,
without losing its own wholeness,
without giving up its shape,
without relinquishing its bonds;
by how it can be twisted
without giving up
without losing itself
without shaking to pieces
without allowing itself to be unmade,
And the bones of Nations are strong.
strength is defined as the exertion of force, the capacity for work.
Work = Force • Displacement
Power, when taken with consideration to time
(and time can never be left out).
thus, under this definition,
nothing strong can remain static,
no matter what it can survive.
strength is a property of living things;
displacement,
movement: change of position over time,
power: that which accomplishes movement,
And the bones of Nations are strong.
Defense
The skeleton is a fortress encasing the mind:
it is a shelter,
a wholeness,
protection for the softness within.
The skeleton is a cage for the heart:
within, it beats and beats and cannot escape,
cannot break free,
cannot be broken,
cannot desert itself.
it is a cage for the lungs:
holds them within itself,
does not allow them to reach beyond their bounds;
expands, contracts, gently,
giving them space to shape themselves,
and by this is breathing achieved.
The skeleton is armor for the spinal chord:
jointed, linked together like chain,
it protects the conduits of information;
brain to body, body to brain,
fragile signals in the dark
flowing unimpeded, safe.
Blood
Here: a fertile soil;
the river flows from it, rich with silt.
All growing things have their origin in the earth,
all life its renewing from the core of bone.
Here: capillaries, impossible to count
reach through stone to touch the earth,
the river flows, unceasing.
the dirt brings forth its life’s elixir,
a never ending supply.
the riverway continues,
out from bone through body,
traverses every cell.
Here: a whisper of the earth within.
Treasury
There is a stock pile:
stone and metal, blood and bone.
skeletons are living things,
constituents of living wholes.
they are made and unmade
as all living things are.
change:
it comes even to Nations.
especially to Nations.
here are building blocks
held within the bone,
carried by the blood.
the bones send them out
and they return.
a cycle, a rebuilding,
homeostasis,
kept stable, kept balanced,
kept unchanging by constant change.
this is the action of all things living.
a reservoir
capture, release.
metal and stone find their places,
do their work;
by this is a Nation built,
not in a day but continuously,
and by this, they know they are alive.