Dust - Oct 3 2024

 

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.