ODE Poem: ODE TO DUST, by Charlie Papen

A collection of time
rests upon
forgotten things

Thickening with the years
Dust is the reminder
of things forgotten
and lost

To pick up an old dusty item
and blow the dust off
and choke as it swirls in the air
is to choke on memories

A cloud of grey and brown,
catching the light and becoming ever more visible,
swirls into pictures of the past

Though,
the cloud may make vision go fuzzy
and get into one’s lungs;
My head is sideways
dust and lint hanging and falling into my mouth and eyes
looking under the bed for—

Something.
I cannot remember
until;
The attic

a circle made of people:
a ring in the dust,
and dusty playing cards
dimly lit with the warmth of

flashlights
capturing the bits of brown turned gold
swirling and flowing
through the air

And how wonderful it is
to remember

The dust that covers everything
old,
lost,
and forgotten,
is the passage of time
presented in a tangible way,
one we can comprehend

The running of one’s finger over a dusty object
to see the line it makes
or how dirty one’s finger may get
measures the passage of life in units undiscovered;

The dust on my window screen reminds me
I have not washed it since we moved in,
usually it is invisible
but not during the golden hour as the sun sets

only bits of green shapes are visible through the sheet of dust.
Bits of hair being pushed
through the screen, less dusty then

Looking through the screen,
before dust had painted it with memories,
to see the stars
and the way the moon made plumerias glow a light blue.

To clean dust
is to travel through time,
The dust collected
allows one to live through life again.

And
after everything has been wiped off
and rid of dust,
every memory relived, every moment
savored again,
a mouth, dust smeared across the side of it,
smiles.