From Dust to Dust

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             From dust to dust our lives are thrust,
             while flames the candle’s brief combust.
             We leave the shelter of the bay,
             unmindful night will follow day,
             to launch our voyage, earn a crust.

             All nature seems a sage august.
             In paths of promises we trust,
             In measured steps our scenes we play.
             from dust to dust.

             With age comes waning wanderlust.
             The mortal frame’s begun to rust.
             In measured steps our scenes we play.
             But even stars to death fall prey.
             And yet there must be more than just
             from dust to dust…


             ~ Harley White



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The poem is a rondeau ~ a short poem of fixed form, consisting of 13 lines (plus the phrase twice) on two rhymes and having the opening words or phrase used in two places as an unrhymed refrain.

Inspiration came from image and info ~ G54.1+0.3: Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust...

Further inspiration derived from the teachings and writings of Nichiren Daishōnin…

Passage from: A Collation of the Layers of the Various Teachings of all the Buddhas of the Past, Present and Future as to Which Specific Doctrines are to be Discarded or Established ~ by Nichiren Daishōnin ~ translated by Martin Bradley

“Therefore, outside of mind there is not a single item (dharma) that exists independently. So when we realise this, it is the perception and understanding that all existence (dharmas) is the Dharma of the Buddha.

“It is then that the two polarisations of life and death change and become the concept of the dream of living and dying, and that both of these two are only a hallucination and a flurry of mental images. When we see our persons correctly in the light of the original awakening, our births are not the beginning, and our deaths are not the end…”

Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō means to devote our lives to and found them on (Nam[u]) the Utterness of the Dharma (Myōhō) [entirety of existence, enlightenment and unenlightenment] permeated by the underlying white lotus flower-like mechanism of the interdependence of cause, concomitancy and effect (Renge) in its whereabouts of the ten [psychological] realms of dharmas [which is every possible psychological wavelength] (Kyō).

The reason that we continually recite Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō

Image explanation ~ A new image from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and Spitzer Space Telescope shows the dusty remains of a collapsed star. The dust is flying past and engulfing a nearby family of stars. Scientists think the stars in the image are part of a stellar cluster in which the supernova exploded. The material ejected in the explosion is now blowing past these stars at high velocities.

Credit: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Cambridge/G. Lansbury et al; Optical: NASA/STScI/W. Keel et al.