Thank you for these tiny
particles of ocean salt,
pearl-necklace viruses,
winged protozoans:
for the infinite,
intricate shapes
of submicroscopic
living things.

 

For algae spores
and fungus spores,
bonded by vital
mutual genetic cooperation,
spreading their
inseparable lives
from equator to pole.

 

My hand, my arm,
make sweeping circles.
Dust climbs the ladder of light.
For this infernal, endless chore,
for these eternal seeds of rain:
Thank you. For dust.

Marilyn Nelson

Dusting

i've been thinking a lot about dust. how my studio produces it while i sleep or am away. i swept my dust but it rose up in the slow wind of my broom, settling back down on my ephemera. i have dust in my bed, dust in my eyes, dust in my nose, dust in my head. it helps 

me to dust to like dust for my studio and myself are generators of the universal specificity of dust.