TUESDAY: Tired Bones

For Remembrance Day

BY MIKE KEENAN

In 1987, archaeological excavations in Fort Erie, Ontario, discovered the remains of 28 American soldiers who died during the War of 1812 during the Siege of Fort Erie. The site, the Snake Hill Cemetery, was found on waterfront lots, a burial ground associated with a U.S. field hospital. The remains were repatriated with full military honours. Copyright is held by the author.

They found them by accident,
as most truths are uncovered —
beneath the planned foundations
of someone’s future home,
on land that forgot it once belonged
to fire, gunpowder, blood.

Tired bones, weathered by centuries,
weighted by silence,
hauled up in shovelfuls of earth —
no longer marching,
no longer saluting,
only waiting.

And suddenly, the ground turns sacred.
Shovels freeze mid-air.
Blueprints scatter.
A war of forms and faxes ignites —
municipal against provincial,
federal against foreign.

Colonels in pressed dress blues
argue with archaeologists
in mud-caked boots,
while politicians pose before cameras,
heads bowed toward skeletons
they’d never thank in life.

Bones once strung with muscle,
with fury, with fear —
that marched into cannon smoke,
through rain and hunger —
never dreaming they’d lie
forgotten for centuries,

until a backhoe nudged memory awake.
Now they are curated:
measured, tagged, catalogued,
escorted by ceremony and flag.
At last, attention —
late, and thick with irony.

For when they lived,
they stood in soaked boots,
took orders barked by men
who’d forget their names.
No pensions, no plaques —
only pain and purpose.

Yet now these tired bones matter.
They stop construction crews,
spark diplomatic notes,
make headlines.
And still they lie quiet,
never asking for
this final, formal fuss —
only to be remembered
as once warm,
and afraid, and young.

***

Mike Keenan lives in Kanata, Ontario. He is a member of the Ottawa Independent Writers Association.