Dusting

“Dusting” is a free verse, unmetered poem. It is a poem in five stanzas, with the stanzas and lines both varying in length. Stanza three—the middle stanza—is the longest of the five at 12 lines. The first stanza is seven lines long, the second increases to nine, and the middle increases again. The fourth stanza is eight lines long, and the fifth stanza is a sharp decrease to one line. The first half of the poem grows toward the middle, and the second half shrinks.

“Dusting” features a handful of rhyming pairs placed at irregular intervals. In the first stanza, the words “sight” (Line 2) and “light” (Line 5) both appear in the middle of lines, at the ends of phrases. This perfect rhyming pair has a third slant rhyme at the end of the stanza, with the word “life” (Line 7). The second stanza also has a slant rhyme: “booth” (Line 13), again appearing in the middle of the line, rhymes with the very last word of the stanza and the only word in its line, “wound” (Line 16). The ends of stanzas three and four, “free” (Line 28) and “tree” (Line 36), form a perfect rhyme.