Walking in the woods I found a hollow bone,
Whose flesh had been the meal of worms.
It was hollow and smooth, bleached by the sun:
And insects had cleaned the marrow.
Ah, that in life I am like this bone,
that all my gifts be used up,
offered upon a platter that is licked-clean,
sopped-up, slurped out, and savored.
Oh, that in death my body is used up
so completely that there is nothing left
and at the resurrection it is renewed:
smooth and clean and white as this bone;
this bone that I found, while walking
in the wood, this hollow bone,
stripped by worms – hollow, smooth,
and bleached by the sun.