Poetry

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Sand, dust?
They’re pretty much the same, right?
I say to myself at the dawn of this
Late February Ash Wednesday
In my solitary refuge
At the beach.

I’ve never liked having black ashes
Smudged across my forehead anyway.
I stopped giving up anything for Lent
Thirty-five years ago
With the justification that
My daily routine was enough sacrifice for anyone.

But that solemn reminder echoes each year this day,
“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
I imagine the mythical god of Genesis,
Scooping up a fistful of dirt
Breathing his moist, fertile breath on it
And molding it into a man.

Then, at the other end of the spectrum,
The Omega end,
I envision my cold, naked body sliding into a furnace and
Burning away to tiny particles of ash—dust.
Grim, but somehow fitting,
The unending cycle of nature is complete.

So, in the bright sun of early afternoon,
This sea, roiled by an imminent storm,
I stroll the brown sand beach,
Pausing every few feet in wonder
At the fury, vigor, and transforming power
Of the foaming, crashing waves.

Somewhere, the ancestors of these breakers
Pounded mountains into boulders,
Pummeled boulders into stones, and
Ground stones into the sand on which I tread.
No less handily will I be reduced to dust
By life’s incessant, blessed battering.

I stop toward the end, near home,
The place I started,
Bend down with an ungloved finger
And draw a cross in the damp sand.
I stand a moment and silently recite,
Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.