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| An Ocean of Plastic (photo credit, UC-Santa Barbara) |
***
"Bodies of Water"
By Nan Socolow
Aeons past
before the plates
became continents
when this Earth
was young
bodies of water
encircled
Pangaea.
Now our
blue planet
is a dying zone
a waking nightmare
pillaged and
plundered,
its watery places
ravaged by mankind.
Civilization has
dumped debris
detritus dreck
bottles and jars
and enough plastic
to gyre and gimble
and strangle the
Pacific wabe.
Bizarre fish
snakeheads
and sea lampreys
with sucking razor
sharp teeth delve
in the fresh water
of the mighty Mississippi
and Great Lakes
And Lionfish
from Indian and Pacific seas
swimmers loosed from
American aquaria
dressed gauzily
to kill in fetching saris
swirl en masse
in the Caribbean
Pythons, boas
gators lurk in the
marshy sawgrass
of the Everglades,
eyes aslit for innocent
passers-by
to squeeze and
swallow
The five continents
that were once
Pangaea, connected
like the carapace on a
hawksbill's shell or
jigsaw puzzle pieces,
are now apart and prisoned
by waste waters.
Billions of people
dying for a drink
of clean water for
their birthright
of potable water.
Global warming
and climate change
are inconvenient truths
of our lives
on Earth,
though denied by some
human folk who buy
and chugalug water in billions
of little plastic bottles
that will remain on Earth
long after we've gone.
***
(This poem by Nan Socolow will be included in a volume (working title, Invasive Procedures: Earthquakes & Calamities) due to be published later this summer.)
