In the poem Carrie by Ted Kooser the poet takes a common item like dust and uses it's symbolism in an unexpected way. The poem opens with " 'There's never an end to dust / and dusting,' my aunt would say" (Kooser 1,2). But the last lines of the poem is where the symbolism really grabs you; "like a branch in a storm. Now dust / is her hands and dust her heart. / There is never an end to it." (Kooser, 9-11). With these words dust goes from a minor annoyance to something a little more funereal. Suddenly we aren't simply talking about dust anymore.
Nice, Jennifer. Yes, dust becomes generations lost, and cleaning becomes the work we do to keep living--both the living itself, perhaps, and also the setting aside of losses as the years go by, so that we can try to keep living. Nancy
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