Dusting

“Dusting” offers up a meditation on the chore of dusting, and its connection to the greater cosmos. Dusting is tiresome work, but the speaker describes this humdrum activity as a marvel. Their observations show the extraordinary that exists in the everyday, as well as help them realize they too participate in this wonder.

The poem is written in the form of praise or prayer, much like a hymn, and is directed to a greater presence that resides outside of the speaker, perhaps God, or another spiritual entity. The speaker is in the dreary act of cleaning, but then begins to meditate on the object of this task, emphasizing their gratitude for the motes of “dust” (Lines 18, 21). They describe the “dust” (Lines 18, 21) in a way that acknowledges its variety, centering on how the specks contain things that cannot be viewed by the human eye, since they are “submicroscopic” (Line 7). Some of things include hard, tangible substances like “tiny / particles of ocean salt” (Lines 1-2). Others are “viruses” (Line 3), acid molecules that cannot be seen but can multiply within a living host, stringing themselves together like a “pearl-necklace” (Line 3). Further, there are “winged protozoans” (Line 4), or small single-celled animals that are too small to be seen by the light of microscopes.