This summer The Well is featuring a series of poems by women. Ruth Goring invites you to approach them curiously and meditatively.
"Dusting"
by Marilyn Nelson
Thank you for these tiny
particles of ocean salt,
pearl-necklace viruses,
winged protozoans:
for the infinite,
intricate shapes
of submicroscopic
living things.
For algae spores
and fungus spores,
bonded by vital
mutual genetic cooperation,
spreading their
inseparable lives
from equator to pole.
My hand, my arm,
make sweeping circles.
Dust climbs the ladder of light.
For this infernal, endless chore,
for these eternal seeds of rain:
Thank you. For dust.
© from The Fields of Praise: New and Selected Poems
You can purchase Marilyn Nelson's works at her website.
Photo by Travel Photographer from StockSnap.
