If this place was once called the land of milk and
honey, then that time has surely come and gone.
For I look upon the flowing lifeblood of the earth
and see that they are choked with rubbish and waste.
Calm and blue from one angle, but there – look! See
instead the rainbow of spilled oil that floats on the surface.
Thick, viscous liquid that coats the feathers of a bird,
getting into pores, beaks, and eyes. If they are unfortunate
not to have a savior armed with Dawn dish soap nearby,
what do they do but suffer and survive as best as they can,
drenched in the black, noxious ooze, unlikely to be
washed off and made clean without assistance.
In that same water, plastic cords and shopping bags float
in the distance just waiting for some unfortunate creature
with wings or gills, to come along and slurp it up before
discovering that plastic does not go down easily at all.
On land it is no better. In the soft grey of the predawn,
nature is but fantasy, with thick fog and verdant shrubs
with clinging drops of dew. But in the light of day, as the mist
burns away, I see clearly colors of flowers, yellow daffodils,
tiny white flowers, blue ones too. And alongside them,
bright red wrappers with neon green and highlighter orange.
A closer look tells me that these are not all blossoms,
crumpled and forgotten, but the remnants of humanity.
Crushed cans and food wrappers, empty soda bottles
caked in mud and plastic containers, our empire of
excess grows evermore while our fellow beings, birds,
fish, amphibians, and mammals claw for life in a world
that shrinks every day. Green things are destroyed. Bears
grow too thin. Humans are moving forward into the future
and all I can see is that the land of milk and honey
has instead become the birthplace of trash and refuse.
—
AR Manu is a Samoan-American graduate student attending Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. She has had her works previously published with Sky Island Journal and Tahoma Literary Review. When she is not studying or writing, she is spending time with her family.
