The View From Here Poem by Seamus O' Brian

I am dust, organized
I am earth, digested
I am a forced settlement
of soil that has been
repatriated by invading
filaments of life.
The dance of soil and light
becoming the living textile
that awaits the harvest
of grazing herbivores—
dirt becoming
tissue becoming muscle
becoming me.

I am dust, rafts of
skin dessicating,
floating off
to become dust
once again.
Harbinger of destiny—
molecular prophets
of my Assyrian captivity
announcing from their
floating epithelial carpets
that my temple will one day
be carried off by entropian
invaders, and laid back
into the soil with sacred solemnity
reserved only for those severest rites
whose meaning we've forgotten.

And filaments of life will invade
my temple and carry its treasures
off to the Babylon
of the summer breezes.
All my words will finally
disappear, floating away
in the whisper of the
autumn leaves.
And all my failures,
all my inadequacies
will dance forevermore
in the light of the sun
turning soil into life.