On April 5, 2018  at Mount Calvary Church in New Bern the Carolina Nature Coalition presented a program of film and poetry focused on cherishing and protecting the environment with the showing of the film Straws and  a poetry reading entitled Voicing Our Values: Four New Bern Poets on Nature and the Environment. One of the poets asked to read, Suzannah Cockerille, could not be present but is represented here. Below are five poems, one from each poet. The poems are very different from each other, but all show an attachment to nature and a respect for its power and mystery. We hope you enjoy the poems.

The Downstream Loop

Sam Love

Sparkling in the sunlight

the little plastic bag sails

from the mindless driver’s hand

to drift among roadside weeds

No one bothers to retrieve it

and on county mowing day

whirring blades cut a grass swath

shredding the bag into gossamer slivers

The next thunderstruck downpour

carries the shreds through the watershed

to the larger boiling stream

to the tidal marsh

to the Atlantic ocean

The ocean’s sun and waves

pulverize the slivers into tiny bits

creating a perfect culinary delicacy

for large schools of filter feeders

Small fish that mistake micro plastic globules

for aquatic eggs and plankton

Larger fish like Sea Trout and Tuna

cut a swath through the schools

devouring the tiny fish, concentrating

the petrochemicals up the food chain

For dinner we purchase the wild-caught Tuna,

let the fish monger filet the toxin-laden flesh,

pack it in ice, and store it in a virgin plastic bag

A bag that completes this obscene ecological cycle

Note: This poem first appeared in Duke University’s Eno Magazine and provided the inspiration for my award winning illustrated children’s book, My Little Plastic Bag, available locally at stores in New Bern and online at Amazon.