Bodies of Water

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.)