The diaper at Vernooy Kill
Vernooy Kill
Discovered by serendipity
Beckons, calls
To something
Deep and old
Within
The big rock
Sculpted over centuries
By the bubbling swirl
Into a natural jacuzzi
Vernooy Kill
Is a place
To ponder time
How short-lived we are
Compared to
These smooth
And sculpted rocks?
At Vernooy Kill
With the rushing water
In our ears
We say hello
To a dragonfly
To the green of leaves
The Green
That we normally
Don't take in
Like this
In all its glow
And we say hello
To a diaper
The diaper
Is laying there
On a rock
Near the water
"Everything is fucked"
We say
When we see it
We laugh
A laugh of sadness
The diaper
So egregious
It connects
To so many fucked things
In this world
Collective guilt
Is as good a name
As any
For what we feel
The artisanal body scrub
I bought for my grandma
At a New Age store
Has now congealed
Into the stickiest mess
It's like rubbing your body
With rubber cement
What will I do with the mason jar
Housing this soap-turned-glue?
Throw it away
Or spend time
Scrubbing it?
The tea I am drinking
Scrumptious, toasty
Came in a plastic bag
For a time I believed
You could recycle these
But John Oliver
Disabused me
Of that notion
Collective guilt
Told me to start
A worm compost bin
Now, fruit flies
Have taken roost
An inevitability
But still,
Annoying as hell
I didn't rescue
The watermelon rinds
From the trash today
I had other things
I wanted to do:
Run
Relax
Write this poem
I ponder going to Hawaii
So much
CO2
It's hard
To walk around the world
With moral alarm bells
On a hairpin trigger
I think about systems
What would systems look like
That would allow us to follow
Our human nature
That likes to roam
But also make the world
More beautiful
Rather than less
Systems
That allow everyone
To live light
On the earth
When is it
Life within limits?
And when is it
Self-punishment?
Idealism,
It strikes me,
Is a lot easier
When you have infinite time
And when others, parents
Take care
Of your body's needs
Idealism is a lot easier
And when you don't know as much
When you haven't watched Jon Oliver
Idealism, at its heart
Is thinking
That you are
Less bound
By limits
Of time and energy
Than you really are
Idealism
And perfectionism
Are cousins
When energy and time
Are limited
I can't hide
From my complicity
I realize the truth:
In life,
All I can do
Is my imperfect best
I have to decide
What I want to do
No optimums
Only value hierarchies
And choices
We can only clean up
So many pieces of trash
From the street
Or the park
Or Vernooy Kill
Cleaning up diapers
Takes away energy
From other pursuits
Such as working to end
Solitary confinement
Or relaxing
My mom told me about a company
Working out
How to make diapers
From mushrooms
Elon Musk worked out
How to make electric cars
And I hear they are better
But I also hear
About lithium mines
I haven't heard anything bad
About mushroom diapers
Yet
It seems
That the dark side
Will always be with us
In some form
Out, out, damned spot!
But the spot is sticky
Everything will always be
A little bit fucked
It seems to me
Is a diaper
In a landfill
Better than one
In Vernooy Kill?
Is a mushroom diaper
Better than a plastic one?
We left the diaper
On that rock
At Vernooy Kill
It's both sad
And liberating
To realize
My smallness
My earthly wants
And needs
It was sad to realize that
Not only can I not
Save the world
But on that day
It was too much
For me
To pick up that diaper
I'm still working on forgiving
Myself
For that supposed crime
I'm still working on seeing
That leaving the diaper at Vernooy Kill
Was a form
Of kindness