Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A HANDFUL OF DUST, by JAMES OPPENHEIM


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A HANDFUL OF DUST, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I stooped to the silent earth and lifted a handful of her dust
Last Line: Who is trying to speak to us?
Subject(s): Death; Dust; Past; Dead, The


ISTOOPED to the silent Earth and lifted a handful of her dust...
Was it a handful of humanity I held?
Was it the crumbled and blown beauty of a woman or a babe?
For over the hills of Earth blows the dust of the withered generations:
And not a water-drop in the sea but was once a blood- drop or a tear:
And not an atom of sap in leaf or bud but was once the love-sap in a human being:
And not a lump of soil but was once the rosy curve of lip or breast or cheek...

Handful of dust, you stagger me...
I did not dream the world was so full of the dead:
And the air I breathe so rich with the bewildering past:
Kiss of what girls is on the wind?
Whisper of what lips is in the cup of my hand?
Cry of what deaths is in the break of the wave tossed by the sea?
I am enfolded in an air of rushing wings:
I am engulfed in clouds of love-lives gone...

Who leans yonder? Helen of Greece?
Who walks with me? Isolde?
The trees are shaking down the blossoms from Juliet's breast:
And the bee drinks honey from the lips of David...

Come, girl, my comrade:
Stand close, sun-tanned one, with your bright eyes lifted:
Behold this dust...
This is you: this of the Earth under our feet is you:
Raised by what miracle? shaped by what magic?
Breathed into by what god?

And a hundred years hence, one like myself may come,
And stoop, and take a handful of the yielding Earth,
And never dream that in his palm
Lies she that laughed and ran and lived beside this sea
On an afternoon a hundred years before...

Listen to the dust in this hand:
Who is trying to speak to us?





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