The Bones of Sedlec -Sam

The bones of Sedlec lie still in their alcoves.

No longer do they think

or feel

or walk.

Now they sit and observe the world around them.

Cranial bones, hyoid bones, and thoracic vertebrae. 

They sit atop the mountains of marrow,

lovingly placed by abbots of years past.

This chapel of bone,

and brick,

and mortar

stands as a monument to the past.

A reminder of

death

and war

and suffering.

Yet their memento morri is forgotten as

millions

now view the bones

of thousands.

From Brussels and Boston, and Beppu they come

to walk in the presence of the dead,

capturing the moment with cameras to show to their friends and family.

But what would the families of the dead say of this skeletal exposition?

To see the remains of their loved ones presented as spectacle

for the masses?

Yet their opinions matter no more.

they too have been reduced

to bone.

Their remains rest among the soil

while their spirits fly to places unknown,

to rejoin those

whose bones remain at Sedlec.