"recyc" by John Reinhart, Frequent Contributor

recyc

John Reinhart

shipping containers, ion stabilizer

casing, fuel cartons with pictures of all those missing

children: last seen crossing the Eagle

Nebula on skis, at Orion’s spaceport,

hawking jetpacks illegally, with a stranger

on the shores of Medea’s black hole –

images of beings lost to the single

stream of vibration just perceptible

as light particles wave goodbye

before darkening someone else’s

threshold, shadows of former selves

playing supporting roles to the universal

clamor for more, new, shiny, improved,

still we cobble together

the discards of daily life, through

the wash again, then spin dry, a grand

cyclone in the promise of sparkle

generated from a little elbow grease

Poet's Notes:  As we stand upon the shoulders of giants, as Ellis Island stands upon a mountain of garbage, as playgrounds sprout atop city dumps, we increasingly recycle aluminum cans, yogurt containers, and newspapers, the refugee children of Saturn's age, praying for another future, a future only possible if we drop pretenses off jagged cliffs to crash into ocean spray below, and dig our hands into the soil, watering seedlings with our blood.