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
The Cursing Poet 