Like old salts’ huts, with herring hung,
or Kilner jars of my old gran –
the fruits of summer in a glass –
that harvest of both sea and land
were pantried for the coming storms,
a lost importance, modern clan.
I dreamed old dreams of cropping stretched,
before new visions eased our lives
with plasticated everything,
preserving for eternity.
No passport needs for overseas,
but did we know, takeover seas,
and fill the herring, without salt,
as plastic both within, without,
accompaniment to fishing nets
and other discards of our waste.
My combing beach was for the drift –
imagined shapes from weather worn,
but ignored warnings strangulate,
with drift nets round the turtle necks,
and beachballs too small for our play
as we fall prey to what we’ve done,
those useless finds that found us out.
Folk say they bank on plastic funds –
both debit and world’s credit cards –
on travelling plastic, tour guides,
and stranded, foreign shores, without.
But woe betides washed on the strand,
not knowing, waste awaits, ashore.
Stephen Kingsnorth (Cambridge M.A., English & Religious Studies), retired to Wales, UK, from ministry in the Methodist Church due to Parkinson’s Disease, has had pieces curated and published by on-line poetry sites, printed journals and anthologies, including Poetry Potion. He has, like so many, been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. His blog is at https://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com