Empty Bone

The Bone that has no Marrow,
What Ultimate for that?
It is not fit for Table
For Beggar or for Cat.

A Bone has obligations—
A Being has the same—
A Marrowless Assembly
Is culpabler than shame.

But how shall finished Creatures
A function fresh obtain?
Old Nicodemus' Phantom
Confronting us again!
-Emily Dickinson

Wow! This poem spoke to my heart...
I have been searching out Emily's poems lately. I almost bought a book of her poems yesterday at Barnes & Noble but decided to wait. But I found all of her poems on line at: So for now, I can read them until I hold them, and holding them is always better...

I have been preparing for our BLAZE youth conference and this year it is based on Ezekiel 37 "The valley of dry bones". I have been lingering long over the imagery of "bones". This poem added new light to why bones are dry...the marrow is all dried up. How many people are walking around with no marrow in life. All dried up, nothing pumping itheirer core.
Our services suffer from lack of bloody marrow...no juice!
God's Spirit brings back the marrow of real life, everything without the Spirit is simply dead bones, a shell of what it was.

Oh God, fill my bones!