Dust settles in my hair and on my skin. It sticks to my eyelashes and I can feel it on my face. I breath shallow and slow, and squint my eyes against the grainy flecks.
I sweep and clean, polish and smooth the surfaces, wipe the dull dusty coating from the wood.

The remains of stars and humans and trees, ashes in the wind. Where does it go, all the dust?

I know where what I sweep, in the act of sweeping, the tidying of my dwelling, the collecting of the dust with the sweeper and the dustpan, I know it will all go into the compost pile at the edge of the yard. Glass shards and dried out leaves, hair and skin, garden dirt and pocket lint ground into dust.

What does it become? From it we come and to it we go? Molded from clay and water only to dry out and disintegrate, blow away on the wind.

Boot heels leave marks in dust.

The dust on the moon never blows.

The dustbowl made farmers into refugees, scattered like dust, lost and discarded and swept under the rug.

Beat the rugs and the drapes, wipe it off the wood surfaces, blow it off the books and the bottles and the plants.

Old houses are full of dust, old dreams, old sorrows, old conceits and old happinesses.

Dust from old laughter drifts from old rafters, blown loose by the wind, tiny motes that reflect and refract like prisms in sunlight, made into laughter again, seen but not heard.

Dust has no memory of its previous form. Dust has no memory, so we must remember to dust.