Autumn Chant

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Now the autumn shudders
In the rose's root.
Far and wide the ladders
Lean among the fruit.

Now the autumn clambers
Up the trellised frame,
And the rose remembers
The dust from which it came.

Rose Hips

Brighter than the blossom
On the rose's bough
Sits the wizened orange,
Bitter berry now;

Beauty never slumbers;
All is in her name;
But the rose remembers
The dust from which it came.

Happy Equinox!

Dusty Skies Lyrics

by Cindy Walker (recorded by Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys)

Dusty skies I can't see nothing in sight
Good old Dan you'll have to guide me right
If we lose our way the cattle will stray
And we’ll lose them all tonight
Cause all of the grass and water's gone
We'll have to keep the cattle moving on

Tommy Duncan

Sand blowing I just can't breathe in this air
I thought it would soon be clear and fair
But dust storms played hell with land and folks as well
Got to be moving somewhere
Hate to leave the old ranch so bare
I've got to be moving somewhere

Get along doggies we're moving off of this range
I never thought as how I'd make the change
The blue skies have failed so we're on our last trail
Underneath these dusty skies
These ain't tears in my eyes
Just sand from these dusty skies

Its been reported that Tommy Duncan, singer for Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, cried the first time he sang these lyrics.

Rain Dust

Dusty, organic, artificial, mineral, radioactive, calcium, acid, lead, toxic, particles and molecules of dirt in drops
Wind blown from deserts, volcanoes, power plants, automobile emissions, fossil fuels, agricultural crops, droughts, or other cosmic, galactic, and terrestrial sources

Picked up in the Sahara sands, Africa, Mars, China, Asia, Arabia, and other locales
Colored in red, yellow, white, brown, ashen gray, blood, blue, black, green, and more
Suspended as nuclei seeding rain, ice, snow, or other atmospheric aerosols
In storm clouds with lightning, soot, mud, gas, microbes, thunder, and other debris
Particles of condensation entrain pollutants in micro-physical climates of air defeating control or suppression
Alien to our understanding and threatening to our lives

Harvest Dust

"The true harvest of my life is intangible - a little star dust caught, a portion of the rainbow I have clutched." - Henry David Thoreau

Also, from a nice poem for this theme - Kentucky Harvest by John T Banasiewicz Jr:

"Haze of brown harvest dust flying high
Changing the bright color of the sky"

And from a poem with a different feel - Harvest Song by Jean Toomer:

"My eyes are caked with dust of oatfields at harvest-time.
I am a blind man who stares across the hills, seeking
stack'd fields of other harvesters."



Finally, from a poem fitting the overall theme of this blog nicely - Dust by C. K. Williams:

"Last, hovering dust of the harvest, brief
as the half-instant hitch in the flight
of the hawk, as the poplets of light
through the leaves of the bronzing maples.

I feel pressed to mention that googling this post's title, Harvest Dust, will bring up many links to articles on the impacts of various types of harvest dust on the lives of field workers and others. Having been partly raised in a farming area, this did not surprise me, but it may be news to many of you who don't share my upbringing.