Dust Poem

The idea was.
At least in theory,
Dust was a bad thing.
 
There was a bowl
Of it. At another
Point in time
The conclusion
Was reached
That everything
Was of it.
 
No season, no
Nothing to measure
To measure against
So no love or hate.
Left us without no
Moorings or so my
Father told me
 
Vanity tables of it?
Isn’t that what a vanity
Table is for?
What happens to
As its failings accrue?
 
No mission but to be clean.
Of itself.
But existing (time)
And problems there –
The problem of now
We are back here.
 
See the whole dust problem’s
No measure.
All’s dust, check.
All’s virtuous, check.
So why not live it up then?
And thus, YOLO etc. etc.
 
{These fok whirr pretty smart.
Thing is, even in
The dust bowl, the
Idea, a very American
One was that something
Wasn’t dust.
I wasn’t.
The Bowl wasn’t.
The dust wasn’t.
 
Since Ecclesiastes,
Been trying this one on.
(how’s that working out for you?)
One needn’t be geologically
Or for that matter
Psychologically trained to
Begin unpacking the diffident
And sometimes strained
Relation the nation holds with
All that is vanity.

Copyright Credit: Philip Jenks, "Dust Poem." Copyright © 2017 by Philip Jenks. Used by permission of the author for PoetryNow, a partnership between the Poetry Foundation and the WFMT Radio Network.
Source: PoetryNow (2017)