It cried like a child they ran to pick it up.
It was a bone; its silence
crumbs of darkness in a crucible. An ear
warped from their hands, deafening.
They sacked earth for meanings;
built altars in silence: Prague, Rome.
Relics of the bone, damasked, bejewelled,
in little glass cases.
They look like dolls.
John Constable