This poem and photo come to us courtesy of Edie Rose, my talented cousin who often shares her words and pictures with me. And now with you.

 

 

 

THE RANT

Don’t     you     dare

Take    those few extra steps

Please     don’t litter

Put the bottle in the trash

Don’t    open your window

and toss that little whiskey bottle out.

Don’t     toss it into the prickers

It may be out of your sight

But it isn’t out of earth’s sight.

Tonight    a heavy rain will sweep it out

From under that bush and

Push it out of hiding

Along with your other discarded trash.

It will rim a puddle until the

Puddle becomes so bloated

It vomits it into the stream.

Like a flushing toilet

that stream will dump it into the river.

The river will gag and vomit it

Back onto the bank

The rains of climate change

Will swell that river until

It jumps its banks

and sweeps the banks clean

of its accumulated trash.

You have forgotten that little whiskey bottle

But you just may see it again

As it races by you

in the bloated river towards the open ocean.

Maybe you will see it pecked at by birds

Or nibbled on by fish

All of them unnourished

by your carelessness.

Maybe it won’t make it to the ocean.

Maybe the river will disgorge it

back onto the bank

where it will lie in the mud

awaiting some earth lover to pick it up

and deposit it into the recycle bin

where you should have put it.

Is there a message in the bottle?

Maybe the bottle ‘s presence   is the message.

©Edie Rose 2014