Down to Earth

I am the dust,
Created by the crushing of steel,
Paper, proposals, a printed email joke,
Someone's resignation, someone else's wedding vows,
Shocked by the height from which I fell,
To cover the mundane artifacts,
Of a different world.

I am the mud,
Made by the stirring of scones and scattered lattes,
Scissors, soap boxes and box cutters,
Cork board with the slosh of water coolers,
and the dripping sweat of a delivery man,
On his daily rounds.

I slip into the spaces,
Made by the new configurations,
Of time, space and the rhetoric of fear and rage,
In a different world.

I am the alchemy,
Born from the mixture of lost innocence,
and the blood of the love of someone's life,
The bones of the oblivious,
Wetted with tears shed in a ladies room,
Earlier that morning.

I am the ice and the ash,
Formed when the fire of love,
Is consumed by hate,
A hate which has spun into a cold orbit,
Of blind and tragic determination,
Frozen beyond reason, reflection, a spark of doubt,
Into a grotesque clarity that cannot be melted.

I am the dirt,
That flies off the grave of a body resurrected,
Simple, basic, fecund, clean,
Shocked by my displacement,
Waiting for my new assignment,
In a different world.


October 12, 2001

Copyright © 2002 Virginia Lee Sprague