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Haiku adrift on plastic

Drive

Haiku adrift on plastic

By AA Patawaran

The plastic problem
What we use for just minutes
Will last a long, long time

Something glints at sea
I squint to see what it is
It’s only plastic

All the fish gagging
Panic at the sea bottom
Mass death soon follows

Plastic everywhere
Microplastics in our drink
In what we eat, breathe

How is the ocean not enraged,
swelling—
how is it not furious with grief:
we have drowned it in plastic,
its waves are no longer its own.

—Ashley Asti

Inside a sperm whale
Six kilos of plastic waste
In Wakatobi

Death from the ocean
Plastic maims and murders
Carnage all ashore

Our plastic lifestyle
It is killing coral reefs
From here to Queensland

O plastic horror
A seahorse astride a Q-tip
Octopi gagging

Marine life at risk
Seas have become plastic soup
Seabirds are dying

Save the sea lion
On the verge of extinction
Plastic ingestion

Governments, wake up
Outlaw single-use plastic
Our future’s at stake

Plastic waste clogs drains
Causing great floods in Delhi
We’re choking to death

Plastic is consumed
10 million bags per minute
No ban in Austin

Each day in the States
Half a billion plastic straws
No plastic straws, please

Drown in a cesspool
Garbage on Manila Bay
Can’t swim on Pasig

Related Tags

sustainability literature Plastic WHWN Write Here Write Now Haiku

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