Ask the Dust

A Threnody of Existence

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Listen Here - Podcast Style

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For you are dust
and to dust you shall return

Genesis 3:19

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Photo by James Wheeler on Unsplash

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As the second mountain arrives the questions also arise.
We live into the questions in cuoreosity.

Did my life matter?
Did I make a difference?
What did I leave behind?
The definition of creation is to create something that previously did not exist in the world.
Was I here?

The undisturbed dust of silence will fall like a cloak upon the words. Like an abandoned city left to be forgotten in the dregs of time. Taken back by the wild. Weeds, grass and trees slowly swallowing the evidence of existence. Their roots entwining the bones that feed them. In the wisdom of the dirt ,that comes to clean everything, new life always grows.
Do words have ghosts?

Imagination dances with intentionality to create a sacred expression of heArt. Once the soul butterfly of transformation has arrived, what’s left behind?
Once the cocoon is gone, do words live on? 

A premonition turns my blood to ink. I give birth onto a blank page. Paper that one day will decay or burn into the fires of change. A page that will turn to ash. Ash left to blow away. What stays?
Words are what words do to us. At the end of what we experience lies the beginning of a feeling. What remains is that which stains the heart.
We are the poem. A parade of words that tell a story.

As the poet we live, as the poet we die.
Love Survives.
Was I here?
Ask the dust.

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Ask the Dust

Ask the dust
I was here
A sacred whisper
painted into a flickering moment
The crackling dirge of a candle
as it burns down in the flame of time
Melting wax hardening
to stale bread
Wrinkles unfolding into vinegar
inside this vessel of wine
As the rust sings the coda
Did a story tell me?
Did I ever tell mine?
One spark in
the embers of an elegy
Transforming to ash
as a eulogy of dregs
left in the bottom of a coffee cup
Woven as a thread
between the blood of shadow
and the ink of soul
Where does it all go?
Will my bones speak of poems?
Will the words of silence decay?
What remains?
Was I here?
Ask the dust

© Jamie Millard

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Photo by Joshua Newton on Unsplash

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When any civilization is dust and ashes.
Art is all that’s left over.

Margaret Atwood

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I believe that poetry is meant to be read out loud. Reading, writing and listening to a poem is meditative and the words create an intimate encounter with the heartfulness of presence. We enter into the presence of a poem. Poetry is a wonderful addition to a spiritual practice as it connects us to ourselves, to others, to this world and to our spirit.

Please reach out to me if I can be of any assistance to you on your journey through the dust and ash of time as you step into the poetry of your own eternal authenticity.

Please enjoy the audio shared at the top of this article.

Lots of Love,

Jamie