Floating tiny flakes of skin;
insidious, ghostly, an infinity within;
Combined, dust upon dust without end
you infiltrate every crevice and crack!
With futile attempts to catch and send
your army forces stick and stack
and drive our enthusiastic dusting friends
on ever aggressive dusting attacks
as we spend our money, millions a year,
on expensive and exotic dusting gear
in futile attempts to hold you back.
Author of many allergy sneezes
you puff unknowing into our nose
and attack with sniffles and wheezes
just adding to our dust-laden woes.
Breathing in untold millions of dust
starts a cascade to dust unseen
as trapped in gooey mucus must
make them claustrophobic and mean.
Our bodies do not like you, not one bit!
Moist or dry, brown or green,
our ever vigilant cilia filters
clump and clog you as “bugger-shit”.
On rare moments we cease the fight
to view your beauty, your free-floating form,
visible in unstirred filtered light;
unfettered, your graceful circular flight
temporarily stops our dusting storm.
And on a more serious note,
you remind us of the Biblical quote,
“Ashes to ashes and dust to dust”
as in death our bodies must
return to a simpler, easier form.
∞
I am allergic to dust (or more likely, dust mites), so I have air filters in all the bedrooms. But with four cats, four litter boxes and four people, dust is an enemy never conquered. The only time I have real allergy issues is when I “dust”, and since I hate to dust because I hate to sniffle and sneeze, it collects and coats every surface before I give up and remove it. Of course, removing it is really just a joke, all I am doing is swirling it around a bit and getting my immune system all riled up. But it looks better, which is the goal of housekeeping, so I keep at it when my dust threshold is hit. But there are times when it is achingly beautiful, and it was in contemplation of a moment of silent filtered light that inspired this poem.
Fantasies of a Forlorn Fairy 