Against Dust

Photo:  Dust unto dust.   David Graham

One of my own poems today, this one dedicated to Josh English, who asked. . . .

Against Dust

In the gush and lilt, onrush

of errand and appointment, leaky

faucet dreams, dog dish full of clouds,

the loneliness of a lukewarm shower,

small ratcheting routines, songs

jazzed with static yet still holy,

in arrested dreams, billowy fog

of a mind at rest, knees and elbows

creaking like a winter house,

in the wind from page after page

of a photo album flipped through

a thousand miles or months from here,

in the little squeal of a stopping car,

chipmunk chittering across your roof,

headache from wine downed a decade ago,

in the ghostly rustle of paper

that forms the continuo of your days,

laptop error chimes beeping,

in the paltry tumult of your heart,

much to do, much to do, much to do,

surely some portion of this life remains

inviolate, a lump of pure gold

or at least the grinning rock of a skull

to outlast your twitches and oozings,

surely it won't all be swept away as dust,

but some dust, at least, will seed clouds

and rain will fall across unseeable fields.

--David Graham