Dust
Oct 3 2024
It’s been forever
since the narrow slats
of the old venetian blinds
have been dusted.
It accumulates imperceptibly
so you don’t notice the dullness,
and clings
to the thin metal slats
with a stubborn tackiness;
the way a positive charge
attracts its opposite.
In the slanted light
of the setting sun
I can’t help but see,
a thick layer of dust
smudged with my fingerprints.
Better not to look.
Dust.
Composed of windblown soil
dog fur
human skin.
Where threadbare clothes
worn carpets go.
And containing the burnt remains
of meteors,
flaring out
like falling stars
as they plummet to earth.
Not to mention dust mites,
methodically working away
at the bottomless feast.
And pollen, of course
from spring after spring;
exuberant life
in all its wasteful extravagance
preserved on my window shades.
Like an archeological dig,
disinterring the climate
from the sands of time
by how much pollen
and exactly what kind.
Or like strata in a rock-face,
a tangible measure
of the serial epochs
in my life, so far.
Just as my weathered face
and thinning hair
betray the passage of years.
Just as the house
has slipped into gracious decay,
but you’d only notice
if you spent time away.
How the saplings grew into trees
enclosing it in shade.
How its paint has faded
gutters sagged
basement cracked;
the land
on which it sits
settling and shifting beneath it.
And just as stuff
I can’t bear to part with
or simply can’t be bothered
steadily accumulates;
covered in cobwebs
in the backs of closets
behind old winter coats,
collecting dust
in darkened corners
I don't notice anymore.
The way things become so familiar
they’re simply background noise.
Dust.
Years of pollen,
containing a record
of early springs,
sweltering summers,
and not enough rain.
Objects
from outer space
somewhere in the cosmos.
And from inner space
my own skin,
exfoliated day after day
over too many years to mention.
Recently, I seem to have lost my compulsive need to write. I want to make poems, but the ideas don't come. My feelings, however, are mixed. Because I’m a little embarrassed at the quantity of mediocre stuff I churn out.
So this is a perspiration poem, not an inspiration one. The application of the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair, just because it was about time (and I was sufficiently caffeinated!)
But once I got going, it felt like before: the same pleasure I’ve always taken in playing around with words and sentences. “Play” being the most appropriate verb I can come up with for this.