DUST TO DUST

A handful was all we needed,

and they were everywhere,

Tennessee red clay makes the best clods.

Sometimes we would just throw one

high as we could to watch it

explode on on the pavement.

They would leave a little pointed peak

And a rayed circle of meteorite debris.

Sometimes, after the garden was fresh plowed

By Papa and his mule, Queenie, there would be

a fresh abundance and we could have a war.

Hand sized chunks smashed into legs and chests

And backs, and try as I might, I don’t

remember a single lost eye. Good times.

The best soil I have ever seen though,

is in an old friend’s garden down by the river.

It is the color of fudge, and about as rich,

it feels good to the touch.

Maybe the grit of dirt crumbled to let spill

between the fingers takes me home so easily

because it is the matter from which we’re made.

My father was a good man,

and he lived a long time,

so I don’t mind too much that 

he returned to such fine stuff. 

Reviews

[Marvin Thomas Cox-Flynn..]

Vol,

I must say that this is a fine, clever, sly, & ingenious, tribute's memorial to your father ... Took me back to my own childhood of spending each and every day with my brother and my uncle Gerald (an adult who was mentally handicapped & who was blessed with remaining a child all the days of his grownup life) as we would have dirt clod fights out in my grandfather's freshly plowed fields and no matter how hard my brother and I tried, we could never defeat nor meet as to best the deadly aim and powerful throw of uncle Gerald, who was a dead eye shot with a .22 Rifle, and even better at knocking the hell out of two young boys who always sought to pelt him with one of two things of always as we grew up with him growing older: Dirt clods from the field, and/or eggs from my Granny's Chicken pen where she raised and sold chickens, pullets, chicks, and fresh eggs on a regular basis, and my grandfather raised cows and hogs to boot ... Those are some my finest memories of growing up, but here is another: How in the hell do two young squirts explain how it is, how it could be of having been, that poor uncle Gerald ended up sitting in the car (Granny only drove Buicks) and backseat to wind up totally covered in broken eggs, whilst we all three were with my Granny as she made her fresh egg deliveries one fine and sunny day, and needless to say, my brother and I sought to say we had done no wrong? My Granny did not spank children. She used a Quirt on them -- a Horsewhip ... And she used it that fine day, and I grew up to never -- not one moment of my life of being whipped or spanked (even for wrongs I did not do) -- once of ever did I think to feel abused or mistreated, but rather corrected and taught to tell the truth, rather than LIE ... LOL! I truly enjoyed this fine read, and I do thank you for bringing back to me such wonderful memories to be cherished for all my living days ...

Marvin Thomas Cox-Flynn de Graham

[Vol]

Marvin,
Thank you for your thoughtful response! Is it not amazing that those of us with childhood memories outside on the farm! All we have to do is be still, close our eyes and taste the food, smell the air, climb those trees, explode firecrackers in cow pies... whatever and what all... the things which made us that are no longer there to build the new ones coming up. We are so much richer than they will ever be...
Vol

[Ken Simm.]

A tribute of pure Americana. What a concept and what a poem that works on so many levels. Excellent stuff.

[emmajoygreen]

How wonderful, how visual each of your stanzas, each epitomizing time past, rfemaining as part of your own fibre, the man you are, sir. As to your last verse, how beautiful a thought. Truly is.

' Maybe the grit of dirt crumbled to let spill
between the fingers takes me home so easily
because it is the matter from which we’re made.'

[Vol]

EmmaJoy,
It is funny how this works. The quantum people have said there is no past, there is no future, only a narrow space we call now... I disagree because, at least in my life, the past is the most real of all. it was rich with a reality far finer than anything going on in this short minute. The only thing missing are those few who, as Leonard Cohen said, have touched my perfect body with their mind. Not many have, but almost all of them are poets.
Vol

[emmajoygreen]

Right,, we're not all able to see the dogma, b rain washin g and all we're being fed.. Mean while back home at the asylum, Mankind is surrendering to yet another trend: how to kill off Earthlings.
I'm not ceding to anything for now.. still have a few years left, right!? Will go on doing what I like best, being me, poet or not.

[Vol]

EmmaJoy,
That's all we've got... Our golden souls trying to spread a little light in the darkness... where you are a Sun, and I, for one, see better with your light out there.
Vol

[emmajoygreen]

I can but try!

[Vol]

Some try, you DO!

[Lorry]

The touch and smell of soil can time travel us back to places and people just as easily as he smell of coffee or a particular brand of pipe tobacco can send me back to the days before I knew tobacco smoke was bad for you and see his smiling face again.
He wasn't much of a talker, but was magic to us.
Every time we visited, there'd be three piles of coins for me, my brother and sister. We were dumbfounded, as we hadn't called to say we were coming, and never even realised that the glass serving hatch between kitchen and living room weren't soundproof and he'd be chuckling at our confusion. 😊
After leaving, we'd go to the local cafe for a coke (glass bottle) and a bar six, which was Cadbury version of a six fingered kitkat and fall in love with the waitress, despite only being about seven.
He passed away when we were on holiday and I never got to see him again, but everytime I passed a pipesmoker, it made me think of him.
I only found out as an adult that the reason grandma was so quiet was he was ill. No doubt because of that pipe.
And even now, when I open my door of a morn and get that whiff of pine fresh after rainfall, which no air freshener can equal, it reminds me of not being in a city and grateful I moved here. 😊

[Vol]

Lorry,
You and I are of a kind... and we are the last of those in the west. Memories of more than the events themselves and times that seeped through our skin like some kind of human synthesis of spirit and soul.

[Lorry]

I was just thinking about that very thing, of how a smell can remind you of not only the person, but their entire surroundings too. I remember I got his silent laugh from him and even the pattern on his wallpaper springs to mind too.
He was my favourite person, but how much of that was down to him being a quiet guy, I can only guess. Everyone else I knew back then hadn't figured out silence yet. 😊

[Vol]

I think I could talk for days about Mama and Papa Lindsey, I wish I was there to sit across a table from you and use up an evening or two....

[Lorry]

Ah, the good old days... Isn't it unfortunate how the awful now days get in the way of them 😊

[Carlos Lorenzo Estrada]

This is such a good write. And its message so very relatable as well. Such wisdom is lived and earned the hard way. Great work Vol.

[Vol]

Thanks, man!