a poem in my pocket

dust is the quality
of the very good beginning
when God himself knelt down, spit on the dirt
and formed a man with it, shaped in his own image;
it is elemental and breathes, or maybe coughs, immortality.

dust saves what’s leftover from
skin shed and stars reborn, the sparkle of supernovas
and the dead residue of a scratched itch or
the sunburned peelings of summer;
it is ever descending, never condescending.

dust collects furniture, uninvited
it prefers antique malls but will settle for IKEA
if left outdoors, it covers fields and raises crops,
partial neither to vegetables, wheat, nor weeds;
it is ubiquitous and determined, a silent trespasser

dust keeps ancestors hidden
under the bed or put away in the attic, remnants
of old photographs in mouse-nibbled boxes, with
or without lids, unlabeled and unorganized;
it is freedom of no longer being confined to a body.

dust is the stuff of both
our past and future; we will all eventually
return to it which means it both comforts and
frightens us at different moments or maybe simultaneously
it is morbidity and chaos buried in cool, decaying soil.

_______________

Written in the style of “The Quality of Sprawl” by Les Murray and linked to poetics prompt by Kim at dVerse Poets pub.