From dirt to mud, then back to dust again.
For earth is reunited again with earth,
and in earthly swaddling clothes is swaddled,
and dirt once more flies forward like the dust
which the violent twisting of the wind
lifts up on high, then throws back down.
And so it is with our much-swirling life
which the heady winds of wickedness
raise up on high, to spurious acclaim.
But again the dirt drops down, and stays below,
until the Creator's Word accords
the things conjoining their necessary parting.
But now there peers out, as if from some depth,
the dirt, made spiritual by the divine image,
and cries aloud in earthly tragedies,
and weeps for this life, which seems to be a joke.
--St. Gregory Nazianzus, Concerning Human Life
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