“After all our years have settled like dust . . .”
––okc forgottenman
Ashes and Dust
When that cruel wind
blows against memories
that have settled like dust
on our lives,
what will remain
sealed in our crevasses
––fine furniture that we are
of a bygone age?
What remaining minutes
of a long life of years
will define us then?
A kiss? A child held in arms?
Regrets? Terrors?
In those storerooms
where people sit
stacked in silent cubicles,
what zephyrs whisper through
to stir the embers
of their minds?
Is there music in those currents
or are they the sad
whining winds
that curl over headstones
and lament the dust that settles there,
moaning through cracks in attics
and around hanging eaves troughs,
causing them to swing and bump
lonely against the fading
wood of abandoned houses?
LIfe builds us and wears us away
like the mountain.
Like sand on the beach.
We are not above it all.
No matter how much power
we think we gain,
Nature is a wind that breathes
into us at birth,
then blows itself away.
The NaPoWriMo prompt was to write a poem making use of the first line of someone else’s poem. You can find the poem by okc forgottenman that I drew inspiration from Here. The WordPress prompt was “whisper.”
http://www.napowrimo.net/day-twenty-five-2/
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/whisper/
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 
Just as well we don’t have to cope with immortality. I’ve always thought knowing there’s an end was something of a relief. Forever is too long for me to wrap my head around. Beautiful poem. Sad too.
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Thanks, Marilyn. This was a hard prompt because any good poem, such as the one I used of forgottenman’s, is so strong that it is hard to rise above it. That is why I couldn’t just use his first line as my first line, as the prompt wanted us to. His central image was strong enough to work in lieu of a first line.
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Loved the concluding para. Very well said. Nature blows away all.
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Wise words and questions. I try not to think about it too much, and focus on the beauty of now. I do not always succeed, but I do try!
I got caught up in your mention of furniture, it immediately reminded me of my son or husband falling asleep in my lap.
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