Dust thou art

Dust thou art.
From body part,
to cell,
to nucleus,
to chromosome,
to atom, proton, quark and string,
all reduced to proposition,
dust thou art.


Dust thou art.
All that Man can comprehend
is fragmentary,
broken,
partly veiled
beneath the dust,
by dust observed.
No humanity, just dust.
Dust thou art.


Dust thou art.
And to the realm of fragments,
thou must return.
From all asset strip't,
all mien and might,
wealth, wisdom, work
- all wrought for nothing
by nothing.
Dust thou art.


Dust thou art.
All pain that wracks,
each anguish suff'ring,
each cry into the dark,
unheard,
unheeded
by the unforgiving dust that circles,
weaving in the air,
blown by wind itself fragmentary
and with borrowed force
fights its own battle
to be where no real being is.
Dust thou art.


Dust thou art,
save in the eye of one
to Whom
that dust shows form
and thought
and feeling
and promise,
One from Whom
dust takes its very being,
its soul, expression,
One Irreducible
whose integrity of essence
passes essence on to the inessential
substance to the insubstantial
glory to the inglorious.
That the insubstantial, inessential, inglorious dust
transcends its own paucity in Him
and taking on His mantle
loves
and rejoices with the greatest joy
knowing that the thumb upon the brow
with ashen grittiness
brings faith, hope and love
with the holy and divine proclamation,
"Dust thou art."