Pink unicorns from crashed containers
you have to learn how to cry,"
my son, the mystic, says,
his soul attuned to higher frequencies
than the rest of us can hear.
are washing up along the coast,
containers fallen off a ship
in autumn storms,
spilling forth their contents
faster than humans can
clear the debris away.
from the shipping company
as to who, in the end, will pay.
more than I ever wanted to know
about learning how to cry.
Each day one more disaster
on my tv screen.
What will happen to
we earthlings
remains to be seen.
and swim with the swan,"
the poet said, so I will try,
as one by one
these troublesome days
go by.
look in their opaque eyes,
and finally understand
what this shifting ground
on which I stand
is trying so hard
to make me realize.
One of 109 containers
washing up along the West Coast
Global News photo
50 tonnes of debris have so far been cleaned off the beaches manually, and picked up by helicopter. It is a daunting task and Surfrider Pacific Rim, the cleaners, say that more offal is washing ashore on beaches already cleaned. The area impacted stretches along the entire coastline of Vancouver Island, from Haida Gwaii to Victoria. Surfrider worker Alys Hoyland said, "We want the federal government to hold large companies accountable for cleanup." (Wouldnt that be great? If only.) So far not a word has been heard from the shipping company.
Being fully engaged in the Now has many hard moments. But it is better to know, and try to help, than live in denial while the waters creep up higher and higher along our shores.
for earthweal where we are contemplating immersion in the Now, and Swans.
very well said sherry, and your right, i barely get done reading about one disaster before another one strikes
ReplyDeleteLearn how to cry as a swan - they do know how to mourn - and leads me through your poem to believe that only a broken heart can be made full of all of life, seaside joys and oceans in peril. Divinely put Sherry.
ReplyDeleteIt is hard to focus on all of the disasters really, as they multiply daily on the screen. I find sometimes I have to take a break for sanity's sake.
ReplyDeleteSo difficult to even find space to breathe. What can we do but cry? and then carry on.
ReplyDeleteHow very sad. And how poignant that what is washed ashore is plastic unicorns - all our fantasies coming home to haunt us.
ReplyDeleteSwans don't like people swimming with them ...they are very territorial and the black ones down here can be quite vicious....Of course this may not be the case in other parts of the world...
ReplyDeleteEverything is topsy turvy down here
And the worst of it is, that even the plastic unicorns which don't spill into the sea will end up in landfill, never rotting away...I think this tide of plastic must be stemmed faster than we know how to do it!
ReplyDeleteI love your son's mystical pronouncement: I am going to spend some time thinking about that!
Plastic unicorns! What a miserable ambassador for all the magic in the world that unicorn is - the mythic downgraded to garbage. Thank you Sherry for writing and being present to your very complicated now.
ReplyDeleteIf your son is right, you at lest understand the swans even if they do not yet understand humans. How can they? I love the quotes in this poem, the dialogue you have with them, the hope for that someday.
ReplyDelete"Perhaps I'll soon converse with swans,
ReplyDeletelook in their opaque eyes,"...It's time we all did this. Mother nature will definitely compel us to bow down to Her some day. This is another beauty Sherry.