Passage

Jeff Howard

Plastic bits of every sort
blown in by gusts
tossed down by children
    on their way home from school
fallen off garbage trucks
perhaps fallen from the pitted sky
 
Every time I rake leaves or use a hoe
nearly every time I bring in the paper
they are there –
crinkly wrappers from lunchbox treats
broken spoons from KFC and McD
garish baubles
drinking straws with twisting stripes
white caps detached from water
     bottles shipped in from the Midwest
dolls’ heads
shreds of grocery bags
splinters of taillights
 
 
An unwanted orange cat
lay on the driveway this morning
in the deep cold shadow
not moving as I approached
so I knew he couldn’t
 
When I wrapped him in an old blanket
and carried him to the porch
he protested only feebly
and when even that ceased
I dug a hole in the damp December earth
that would hold him
for the next passage
 
There in the shovel
was some nameless red shard
lost among the detritus of root hairs
and leaf mold and glacial till –
nutrient for an unknowable
world to come
 
I stooped to say a prayer
circle upon circle
and left them to it

The Science

Plastic debris now circulates throughout the Earth system – wafting on air currents; dangling from trees; drifting in oceans, lakes, rivers; settling into sediments; lodging in the guts of cormorants, turtles, salmon; even zipping along decaying orbits. Meanwhile, chemical components of plastics and byproducts of plastic production and disposal invisibly lurk in the bloodstreams and nestle in the cellular recesses of wildlife and humans across the globe. Corporate spreadsheets largely ignore this pollution as an irrelevant “externality.” At the same time, the industry heavily promotes plastic consumption, and industry lobbyists mobilize against regulation of plastics. This pollution, along with the energy byproducts destabilizing the global climate, reflects humanity’s willingness to allow the fossil carbon economy to scramble the intricate natural systems that brought Homo sapiens (sapiens = wise, intelligent, discerning) into existence and allow it to survive. Evidence of plastics’ adverse effects on wildlife, ecosystems, and human health continues to mount.

The Poet

Jeff Howard is an environmental social scientist. He lives in the Columbia River valley by way of the Allegheny River valley, the Connecticut River valley, and valleys beyond. His poetry reflects a Buddhist perspective on the continuum of consciousness in an era of ecological-tailspin-amid-ecological-belonging. It has appeared in Consilience, Deep Times, Unearthed, The Fourth River, Amethyst Review, The Ecological Citizen, The Thinking Republic, Green Ink, and elsewhere.

Next poem: Proving I’m a Bar Above My Asymptotically Equivalent Evil by Eleanor Jane Turner