Dust As We Are

What if birth was exile
from another life?

What if existence is veil,
drawn softly as breath over
quiet water?

I feel my soul descending
into time,
like sleep settling over childhood eyes.

We trail an invisible disturbance
behind us, rippling under touch.

Beauty finds us all too briefly,
then passes into memory.

The sorrow of life
passes inward, there to live again.

The world is too much
within us.

Too much presses
too heavily,
upon our souls.

Desire disperses our attention
like passing dust,
until there is only grief
for what is gone.

We must grow quiet again
to hear the silence gather us again.

For dust as we are,
dust as we were,
dust as we shall ever be.