Dust – So Soft

 The sun warmed my back.  The soft, yellow dust caressed my bare toes.

Saturday was a wonderful day.  I could just laze around, enjoy nature.  We

lived on a dusty country road.  Very little traffic came by, so we walked in

the tire tracks.  I was kind of lost in a world of daydreams.  I kicked a bit.

Dust flew everywhere, soon to disappear.  Into my mind came a scene

described in this week’s school paper, current events section.  It told of the

dust bowl in the mid-west.  I could not imagine how something so soft, so

fine, could ever be a threat to anything.  Just then, a small eddy of wind

swooped down the road, touching the dust just ahead of me.  It spiraled up,

loaded with yellow.  As the eddy subsided, the gold drifted over everything,

including me.  I could feel it in my hair, see it on my arms, taste it on my

lips.

My mind began to work.  This was only a tiny breeze.  What if it had

been hurricane force?  It could have taken all the loose dirt from the road,

and everywhere else, too.  Dust was evidence of dry weather.  The mid-west

was flat land, full of farms.  The drought and strong winds could easily rob

the fields of fertile soil for years to come.  Cattle, and even people, could

have nothing to eat, no water to drink.  Without water, the land had little to

offer.  I tried to imagine what it would be like not to be able to wash the dust

from my arms, or not to get a drink to clear my throat of its gritty feeling.  I

may have been just ten years old, but I began to understand the reason

behind the Western Rush, the search for livable lands.  In front of my home,

in my stretch of dusty road, I had my first insight into current events.