Dust cakes every wrinkle,

Sticks to pitch-spots left

By careless fingers roaming

Over bark and wood.

It blackens nails and toes,

Clinging desperate to every cell,

Imbuing skin with dirt-scent

And mountain-smell.

It becomes jeans and boots,

Hair and eyes and arms,

Morphing into smoke and flame,

Dog and human, too.

Dust is everything,

All but soul and song,

And even those are slowly

Becoming one with dirt and stone.