Puzzled Dust

Proud, angry, puzzled dust,
if led to water you may drink,
if beauty winks at you, you wink
but cannot comprehend the thrust
that tickles in your threaded bone;

bone dropped aside to flake and rust,
return to elemental grist
while ghost goes where you cannot guess.
Some say it goes to study trust-
ing earth as if that were its home

and it, when ready, also might return.
In any case, by then you're gone.
Whatever sticks it might pick up again
are not your creamy meal and bone,
long since locked up in stubborn stone.

But who would ever ask the dust
to name the height of its desire,
"Lift or be lifted somewhat higher?"
The summonsed earth need not atone
for being but the ground of song.

Copyright © 2003 Walter Clark All rights reserved
from Rivendell
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission