Shrinking waterfall,
 
when you’ve been reduced to dust,
 
the willows will mourn.

 
 

Summer’s drought deepens—

dust settles down on my porch

like a tired old cat.

 
 
 

Ruthless winter wind,
 
you keep grinding the mountains
 
into mounds of dust.

 
 
 

Winter desuetude—
 
dust slowly fills a teacup
 
untouched on the shelf.

 
 

Summer threnody—
 
drought-dead leaves drop one by one
 
on a dusty path.

 
 
 

Nothing stays the same—
 
pine cones, dog bones, river stones
 
crumble into dust.

 
 
 

Deserts I have walked
 
still somehow remember me—
 
stones and dust and thorns.

 
 
 

See this speck of dust?
 
That’s how long it’s been, my child,
 
since the mountain fell.

 

 
 
 

On the kitchen shelf
 
dust lays itself down each night
 
among the teacups.

 

 
 
 

This old stone lantern
 
where a wren once built its nest
 
now holds only dust.