Blog Your Blessings Sunday: Dust

I have watched it dance
when air is white with humidity
Whose magic lifts the lid of this gleaming glove box
And travels the tributaries of the lives of the dead
Who left behind:
A color postcard of Atlantic Street, Stamford, 1913;
A mother-of-pearl souvenir coin purse, 1913;
A red satin-lined leather roll-up sewing kit, very old;
A book of poems by an obscure Cape Codder, 1943;
And a "pantaloon doll," hand-stitched, 1966--
A gift for me from my great-grandmother, who owned this box in 1966.
These tributaries lead to warm, still pools above which dances
The dust from which these thing come, the dust from which I come,
The dust from which all things come,
In the light that enlivens everything.
I breathe in the dust and so take in this legacy:
The plain truth that we are dust and water and light
Passing quickly through a dream.

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11 Comments

  1. Beautiful ... :) Happy BYB Sunday!

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  2. Wonderful... it actually conjured up a strange set of thoughts and memories for me. I'm a historian by hobby and often travel to historic sites, homes, and of course, museums... they all have their individual smells... and some of them come home to me like truth. There is something so pure and so comforting about being in an old 1812 fort and smelling wood smoke and yes, dust, that must lower my blood pressure several points... like being "home"... or at least, being in a place I love... Thanks for this blessing!

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  3. Happy BYB Sunday and have a great week ahead!

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  4. Anonymous12:46 PM

    We all should so lucky as to have treasures passed on and maintained that can inspire words like this.

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  5. What a lovely post. Thank you for sharing.

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  6. Beautiful writing, Sandy. I could see the dust and the box and each item as you described it.

    I have a gigantic box that I inherited when my mother died. I like to paw through it and see if the reasons for my father's and mother's torment are there. They never are. I guess it was just us kids...LOL

    Happy BYB.

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  7. Lovely....Happy BYB Sunday....mine's finally up. :-) Hey, I see your book is now on your sidebar...gotta go check it out. Congrats!!!

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  8. That is beautiful - I shall look upon my dust more kindly now.

    Happy BYB Sunday.

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  9. Thanks for stopping by! Joke's on me, though--no sooner do I think happy thoughts about the power of antique house dust to evoke the eternal than I read in the paper that dust is playing its part in global warming. Actually, the culprit is soot, and it sits on the snow of the Arctic, and it absorbs, rather than reflects, the sun's heat, causing melting. The darker ground that's exposed also absorbs the heat and light.

    Most of what's up there causing the trouble is from industrial emissions, so my grandmother is off the hook! Amen.

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  10. Lovely. Happy BYB.

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  11. Double Decker Bus Guy,
    We've been among the ruins--particularly the Pilgrim ones on Cape Cod at Thanksgiving--and had exactly that experience. You are a natural prose poet!

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Thanks for being here.