The Horror of Dust

Dustbowl days have found us

with stiff masks, choking, and parched,

for love’s morality. This darkness

threatens us. We seek relief, sustenance

from the deeply rooted grasses torn, displaced,

malefaction is all that is blooming. 

On the still screen the dead lie shriveled-stilled,

a common enough image every day.

There's no tears from the sky, to ease the

furious winds of pain. No tears. Eyes seer. On cracked ground

where feed sack skin hangs from skeletal frames

much deprived of the sensible beating

of hearts with hope. Safety and serenity lie as fossils on

barren, infertile land.

Yet, we must still offer prayers for solace; 

send them to seed the sky, 

with old memory of peaceful footprints, 

even though no longer evident from these vapid eyes, 

before eternal desolation

and the darkness of the dust envelops us all, 

and the wind takes us.

© 2022