Of Plastic and Plasticity

         

   Of Plastic and Plasticity

.

Peering out over open water: green wash,

No spot of black to mark a seal, nor sight

Of white to indicate ice upon which to strike,

The bear turns about, towards dry land,

And trundles away from the shore,

.

Following a novel scent, not so sure

To signify a meal, but more appealing 

Than sterile saline. The stench of humans

Almost overpowers hunger, pull of putrefaction,

.

But cautiously the bear pads across scraped

Gravel and strands of soft stuff –not snow – and

Colourful lumps, shiny hard strips and bits.

.

A sharp set of claws upturns tins and other

Things the bear has never seen, and finds skin,

Bones and shreds of flesh of prey never tasted:

Not even raw; changed in a way it can’t fathom.

.

Other animals abound – gulls and foxes and

Neighbour bears. But she fights for her share

Of the spread-out spoils of some unknown

Carnage, scavenging scraps of flesh amid debris,

Some of which is stuck with string, some

Clinging to wrappers – has to be eaten also –

But are surely shed easily enough 

As would be ingested seal skin and bone.

.

Some men with glasses from a far observe

The animal with consternation, as it with

Relish ingests the refuse: Earth’s greatest

Quadruped predator reduced to such. But 

Others shrug at suggestions of contamination,

.

Considering the data and the sea state – 

Since even artic snow and summer rain contain

The same chemicals as the landfill, and

The seals are a dish equally intoxicating

From fish swimming in poisoned brine.

.

What use, they wonder, a pristine scene

Without seals within reach of a beach,

Other than to produce a perfectly clean

Bear carcass: healthy except for hunger?

.

The bear, on the other hand, now on land,

Is pulled by the wind past the dump, to 

More varied carrion. Carcasses lie in woods:

.

Caribou, moose, deer and musk oxen;

Moving, the quarry could become new prey

Replacing seals, if bears become plastic enough.

.

The pinipeds themselves, if they are to survive,

Shall someday have to haul up on a shore to pup;

Walrus, too, must beach for calves to breach.

.

Eventually, perhaps, an adaptation to such crap

From our waste, awash in any water, solid or not,

They encounter, can give a chance for all species

To scarcely subsist somehow in a new balance.

But such hopes fast melt in plasticity’s absence.

.

Not the most up-beat of poems, but in some way a tiny bit optimistic for the predator if not species of large mammal facing the most precarious future of us all….

Poem: the Advantages of Anthropomorphism

Was reminded of this the other day when listening to an onpointradio show about cats and dogs getting personhood…

It’s a topic I’ve thought about a bit in relation to my book on the sociology and future (or lack thereof) of hunting, which I hope to get back to later in the year…

Not quite the scientific method, though..

 

The Advantages of Anthropomorphism

 

Sometimes, if we would examine events

Could think of these things, from another’s

Point of view, and see all sides of situations,

Such things, which are now hard to understand,

Should be much more explicable…

 

Anthropomorphism is frowned upon, but why

Is the worm crawling across the asphalt?

 

In the same way that the squirrels have not forgotten

The location of their acorns, for they can afford

To ignore the extras as the winter thaws

And spring buds burst with sap, more appealing,

 

We could imagine we were the moths, wandering

Between raindrops with no moon, full or not,

To guide them past streetlights in the damp night

To what we know not – well, we all know what.

 

Will the earthworm drown upon the grass?

Is it trying to escape the rain? No. There is no

Escaping, nor a need, but instead it is taking

Advantage of the damp to strike out from its

Little patch of grass, in search of pastures new,

Be that soil or sex, past our artificial boundaries.