This for the little brothers
And the widowed mothers
To the Sunday morning snoozers
And the gamenight losers
To the wimps in the schoolyard
And even the bullies just down the boulevard
Shake the dust.

This is for the shopfront greeters,
The youth group worship leaders,
For the early morning joggers and the late night bike riders,
And for the boy who's crush loves someone else
For milk crate ball players,
And for the wallflower haters
Plant the forests.

To the sleepers and the dreamers,
And to the bed-wetters,
As well as the lonely love letters
To the broken hearts who write poems
And the broken souls that stole them
To men who work for a family they never see
And girls who want a lover but they'll never be
Split the seas.

For the heavens you have lived and the hells you felt you have gone through,
For the demons who have overcame and the ones yet to be overcome
For the ones who have stuck with the Lord all the same
And the ones who don't yet know His name
For the fair-weather friends the friends 'til the end
The overnighters and the stories told at campfires
Move the mountains.

This is to the poet, and lovers who don't yet know it
To the writers but it's just a hobby,
The Debbie Downers who can't stop me
This is for the authors whose books is left unread on dusty shelves
And the girls who hate the look of themselves
To the ones, that when it rains, they choose to sing
And the winter you must endure to reach the spring
Shake the dust.

This is to all of you,
and I will say it again: shake the dust.
Because from the dust you were made,
and to the dust you will return.
So let this poem not be mere words that barely flow,
may this poet not just be another kid,
too quixotic to change the world.
But might my poetry be the notes
which your words are carried by.
Let them swing and sway,
a piece to our battlecry,
some sylable in your life story.
Because from the dust you will rise,
so carry the dirt with you
and take the world by storm,
for the ground you scrape from your palms
is the story you form.