In the story
It is a slice of glass
Too thin for sight or pain that slides
Into the heart and poisons, slowly
Hardens the soft shapes of friends
Into sharp points of spite
To bat away,
To flee, and that’s the challenge,
For the cure is closeness,
A loved one’s tears to melt
What’s hardened and to flush
The toxin out,
Restoring self to self.
The roots beneath the street
Rise up and make
The concrete ripple
And that looks like hope because
It hints that what’s most living
Is most true.
But now in sea ice chipped
From nature’s fortress in the farthest north,
A place with winters hard enough
(Until this year)
To block the path of commerce—
Even there, gathering within the frozen barricades,
Is plastic
Sliced too thin
For sight or pain.
And when the ice all melts
It will remain.
Image credit M.Danny25 / CC BY-SA 4.0
(Un)Nature Poems 