and came of age in Texas and southern New
Mexico. He has worked numerous dead end
jobs, and now makes a living working on
computer networks and various related
activities. Bosley has been making up stories
from an early age, and from time to time they
end up on paper.
by Bosley Gravel
Mother's old house stands in the forest, almost forgotten, but not alone.
The window panes smashed like broken teeth -- the good wrought
iron fence sold for scrap.
Mother told me that when Great Grandpa died they had no doctor or
undertaker. So they planted him in the earth behind the house. They
dug with their bare hands, and her father didn't say any prayers but
told them how Great Grandpa had once had been jailed for stealing a
pig.
Mother said they buried him deep that autumn, and she imagined him
frozen in the earth waiting for spring like a fresh seed as the snow
blew the last of the orange leaves.
* * *
Spring came with white wings against blue skies, and the children
played tag and blind-man's-bluff where Great Grandpa lay.
When summer came, blowing warm, the first sprout of the Bone Tree
broke the earth, and the new bud grew strong on their laughter and on
their smiles. He finally grew stout enough for her and brother's to climb.
They'd sleep, sometimes in the afternoons, cradled in the branches,
until the sun would set.
In the fall, bats roosted in his ivory limbs and hung like ripe fruit.
The Bone Tree had grown a face that could smile and even cry when it
watched them through the windows. The children grew as strong as the
Bone Tree's roots and as tall as its old limbs.
He watched Mother's brothers go off to a war and never come back and
he watched her suitors come by the dozens until one of them finally
made her heart ache when he left. And the Bone Tree gave his
blessing, and she was swept away.
Now Mother's old house stands almost forgotten by all but the Bone
Tree.
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