I drop down an embankment and then 

It’s a flat run with a tailwind downriver when

An indigo streamer waves at me from a snag

But not exactly indigo, call it mauve

A color not found in nature, 

In the storm-wind, it’s a plastic bag

Of all things, or what’s left of it,

Such an eccentric color can only mean

Fashion, from one of those golden doors on the Kö

Perhaps, flown ten miles on the wind to its post here

And myself flown five thousand miles and more from home

To this land like my own, if at a tilt and more guttural

A stranger but now I feel almost acclimated, 

Something instantly recognizable in this bag, 

So familiar in its mindless greeting

A lingua franca of groceries toted

Of mattress wrappers, sandwich bags and boxes coated-

It’s crossed and nailed there on that small and dying tree

As are millions more of its kind right now, 

Even as I see it’s shaking itself to ribbons

Testing Xeno’s proposition as it divides in wind and friction 

And divides again, giving itself up to the air

It’s ever-diminishing particles on a flight to nowhere, 

And everywhere, moving on the wind, into the fish in this river, 

Into the birds passing through, that dog pulling at tufts of grass

Over there, expanding outward for a thousand years 

Through you and through me, in this world of disunity 

Perhaps it’s the one thing that binds all of us

And every creature into a polymer destiny

We are all becoming plastic now, united through trillions of bags

Swimming in rivers, floating in ponds and seas

Undulating from fences and posts as well 

On every continent at last, the plastic bag

Is our one, true international flag