A Handful of Dust

I will show you fear in a handful of dust - T.S Eliot.

Is that all?
You think yourself powerful,
All-seeing, eyes of mortality
The dirt-caked fist of God himself
and think yourself unique?
A handful of dust to inspire terror?
The fear of ages passing
in the debris of ages past.
You summon up old demons
made of wire and twigs and flesh and bone
faded, distant and forlorn
they play upon the mind.
A handful of dust is fear itself.

I can do so much more.
I can bring fear in your reflection.
Fear in the touch of a lover,
Fear in a hairbrush,
a loose tooth,
a stain on the floor.
I can bring tears in an embrace.
Panic in a note of music.
Sorrow in the embers of a fire.
I can summon hate
and shame
in a piece of paper.
Pestilence in pencils and pens,
desecration in a home-cooked meal,
madness in a concrete spire.
I can do so much more.

Can you, you bloody-faced creator?
Can you conjure love and hope and joy?
Where are your silver-faced angels,
made of light and sound and warmth
to seep into us and sweep us away?
Where are they?
Are they in your handfuls of dust?
Did they die with ages past?
Their corpses leave nothing for us,
your hateful masses.
Let their shades walk the world.
Show me hope in a handful of dust.
That's real power.