Saturday, March 2, 2013

Marilyn Nelson: "Dusting"


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.



"Dusting" by Marilyn Nelson, from Poems for a Small Planet: Contemporary American Nature Poetry, edited by Robert Pack and Jay Parini. © Middlebury College Press, 1993.

Photography credit: Unknown (originally color).


 

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