To Dust All Return
It was an act of disrespect to expect the skies to change on your account.
She knew that she was not immortal.
She was constantly falling like a leaf;
someday she would hit the ground.
Autumn trees on the roadside blushed to see her pass,
as they did for each and every ghost trapped within a moving body.
She knew that she was not unusual.
She was made of bone and sinew and dust;
someday she would be laid back into the earth.
It was an act of disrespect to expect the skies
to change on your account,
no matter how deep your longing went,
the gentle stabbing and soaring that had become familiar.
About the Creator
Carly Bush
I'm a writer with a passion for highly visual and quietly subversive literature. I contribute to Collective World and you can find my short stories and poetry here.
Connect with me on Instagram and TikTok: @carlyaugustabush
Reader insights
Outstanding
Excellent work. Looking forward to reading more!
Top insight
Heartfelt and relatable
The story invoked strong personal emotions
Keep reading
More stories from Carly Bush and writers in Poets and other communities.
A Flower Song
Apparently the Aztecs, Toltecs, Chichimecs and other Mexica were crazy about poetry. Despite the book-burning, slaughter, and epidemics that characterized the early stages of the Spanish conquest of the empires of Mexico, some hundreds of poems from the height of their tradition come down to us in Classical Nahuatl, preserved by Nahua and Spanish scholars of the 16th century. One of the most famous poets, Nezahualcoyotl, was a sage-king who opposed the cult of human sacrifice associated with Tezcatlipoca, God of the Smoking Mirror, and favored Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent. Flowers and feathers were the favorite offering of the Plumed Serpent. Moreover, flowers and feathers are a metaphor for poetry. Individual words, scattered petals, the down of tropical birds. The temples of blood sacrifice could be transformed into temples of flower and song. A sublimated offering to the Heart of Earth and the Heart of Sky encapsulated in the Classical Nahuatl kenning for poetry: in xōchitl in cuīcatl, meaning, "the flower and the song." The following poem is part of a longer work, and is in a state of flux, so take the waters as they flow:
By Rob Angeli4 days ago in Poets
Comments (18)
Just gorgeous! What an honor to return to the earth, that which nourishes our body and soul. Love the theme of impermanence you so beautifully and vividly explore, and the natural cycle of life, death, rebirth. Beautiful work, Carly. I just realized I am not subscribed to you, which I’m about to fix. 💫
This is such a beautiful meditation on mortality, and a surrender to it, during the season when things die. Love it. 🤍
Such a multi-faceted poem. Nothing is constant, we are ever changing with the world around us. Thoughts and emotions follow.
Well, this is stunning! congrats on Top Story and you have a new subscriber!
Beautiful writing. We all end up back in the earth in some way when it's all over 💙Anneliese
I can't seem to read your poems just once, and I love that. This one is twisting my mind into interesting shapes. I simultaneously read the "she" to be a human ("as they did for each and every ghost trapped within a moving body") and as something else, like the wind ("the gentle stabbing and soaring that had become familiar"). But perhaps it is the longing that is like the wind. The shift to "you" is startling. Let me try to unpack it. Of course, I see the trail of this poem. The perspective of the first act is that of the human, the "she," as she views her existence simultaneously as being unimportant in the grand scheme ("she knew she was not immortal/unusual") and yet so important that the trees blush as she passes. So...is it her act of disrespect to expect the skies to change on her account? Do we shift to "you" because the speaker is now directly addressing her, or is the speaker addressing the reader, now? I think the former. The trees do not blush for her (or other people) and the skies do not change for her either. She is just dust that longs to FEEL (stabbing and soaring). That connection to nature, it seems, is a lesson to be learned, something to be respected; there's a right way to engage with one's mortality in the grandness of trees and the sky. Anyway, sorry for rambling. I like to process poetry like this, especially when it's as thought-provoking as yours. ❤️ Congrats on TS!
Great work Carly. Congratulations on your top story.
"It was an act of disrespect to expect the skies to change on your account" This line really resonated with me for some reason; there's a kind of slow, creeping rhythm in this piece that feels natural and beautiful. Like the poem is blooming; it's genuinely beautiful.
Nicely done. Very touching. Congratulations on TS
I loved it ❤️ Hope my stories gets to this point 😪😪 What type of stories do you guys like🤗
This is Hauntingly beautiful Carly!! Congratulations on Top Story!!
Congratulations on your Top Story🎉💯
Beautifully written! Congratulations!
Congratulations on your Top Story
Awesome. Congratulations on receiving Top Story status. This was, to me, so personal. Many times, in the past, I've felt alone yet in a crowd. I really, REALLY like this one.
Wonderfully worded. Absolutely beautiful
This is beautifully written. Congrats on the TS.
This is such a sad yet deep and somehow soothing poem. I especially like the lines “It was an act of disrespect to expect the skies / to change on your account”. Congrats on the Top Story.