Ash Wednesday, with its accompanying symbols and rituals, is still resonating within me the day following. In the past, I have wondered why not “You are glory and unto Glory you shall return?” This year, however…with so much crumbling…the idea of dust–and not only the idea, but the reality, of dust…it settles closer to Centre and asks for time within me. These lines came forth from that time this morning.

There IS hope in dust, transient sign of the universe settling into form and shape.

Binding Dust

I am 
dust and too,
I shall return
to dust;
In the meanwhile,
though, my motes,
my atoms, my humanity
enlivened with the Breath
of God, the Spirit of 
inspiration, gravity,
movement, presence,
laughter, misstep, and grace,
are bound without question.
Bound with a current of forgiveness;
held with the staying power of wonder;
connected by Love and freed by
community, service, and enough
solitude to remember;
to remember humbly, entirely,
and with quiet gratitude,
that when what holds me bound
to this Earth and to 
the fullness of creation upon it,
lets go, 
this dust shall be transformed
and borne on  the poetry of wind,
the incense of fire, the 
steadfastness of rock,
the bridge of time
between seasons:
Love becoming
love once more;
Ever changing,
always new, world
without end.

Kimberly M. King