Dust Poem by Thomas Noel Smith

It isn’t as if we’re strangers to the dust.

The happy wanderer walks
Lazily through candlestick tress
As dust sprays into the wind
And, like an addict
He sniffs freely and deeply
The fresh and sour smells
Of rotting leaves and growing moss.

The housewife, rag in hand
Silently curses the dust
But sings as dry earth fills her nostrils.
At last the job is done
And she thinks herself freed from dust.

Cars race.
Trucks belch smoke.
Parades of traffic dust the skies.

On a summer beach, flames flicker
From a bonfire in the dark.
A couple dances,
And ashes rise around them.

In dust we dance
In dust we live.
And to dust we cling.

Alone
Our eyes close,
But we are all that we have seen

Yet we are never free…
We never were…
Free from the ever-shifting spirit strain,
Never free from what we are to be…
Dust.