Thursday, March 31, 2011

It's Plastic: A Poem

Hi Friends,

I went to a beautiful place called Malibu Club over spring break. It's a several hour boat-ride outside of Vancouver, BC. Mountains, salt water, trees, snow and, best of all, no cell service or computer! While I was there I was reading Wendell Berry poetry and it inspired me to write some poetry of my own. This piece was also inspired by some awesome slam poetry done in my Inkling's class last quarter.

It's Plastic
This this that keeps me from being where I am.
From being still and being whole,
In once place with all things.

Plastic steals my mind as my heart wonders what is the time
Who has called or sent a note
A post on a wall of immaterial bricks
Built on the belief that plastic connects and fosters realness,
Though it is plastic that severs me from all that is real and here and now:

The cry of gulls
The rushing sound of waves and trees moving in a rhythm I cannot quite catch
The smell of wood stain and fresh-cut pine
Laughter around the corner of friend meeting friend.

Plastic tears me from contended existence as my mind yearns
To know all that has gone on in my absence
From a world which has no dirt or mud or trees
At least
Not mud I can cover my body in
Or trees I can wrap my arms around and let their worship and mine mingle together
In between our bodies of rushing waters and created souls and limbs

Reaching up
Reaching out towards sun and stars and beings alike and not
Surrounding us with their bodies of flesh, bones,
Blood and hands grasping always for what we do not know

For plastic
A cruel delight from which I have no flight,
For even in a place as this
Where it would seem plastic cannot touch
I find it beside me in my backpack
In my neighbors ears,
Tearing and severing and pulling us from here
From now
From anything that's real.

1 comment: