Tag Archives: poem about recycling

It’s a Gas

15 Replies

 

Waaay back in June of 2014, when I had about ten followers–none of them followers of today–I wrote this poem. I just stumbled upon it, having totally forgotten it, but it seems so timely today as we become more and more aware of the mess that plastic has made of our world, that I decided to rerun it.

It’s a Gas

I know that I saw it on You Tube
(and I’m sure that it wasn’t a dream)—
a machine that shreds old soda bottles
and melts them to make gasoline.

The machine they were using to make it
was compact—and could possibly be
installed in each house or wherever
you think you might like it to be.

Grocery stores, motels or roadside—
(wherever these bottles collect)
instead of machines set for vending,
would have a machine to inject

with all of the plastic you brought there
and for it you’d get, I deduce,
credit for all of the petrol
the bottles you brought in produce.

Every gas station would honor
these chits that you’d get every day.
You’d make a big saving on gas bills
with bottles you once threw away.

You could save up your old plastic bottles
and toss them right into your trunk
right next to the tools and blankets and flares
and all of the usual junk.

And when you next went for refreshments,
for soda or candy or chips,
you could also deposit your bottles,
’cause your car also needs a few sips.

The process I describe here is not fictional. Google “pyrolysis” if you want more information.

Grand Circle

8 Replies

(Click on first photo to enlarge all) There is a poem after the photos. Someone just suggested I note that here because he didn’t notice it the first time he looked at this post.

Grand Circle

Circle of sunlight, orb of the moon.
Each of their passages over too soon.
What we may find as the day or the night
gives over to nature in its swift flight
is only the present. It isn’t forever.
No matter how talented, selfless or clever
we’ve fashioned ourselves, we’ll all come around
to serve our real purpose, to nurture the ground.

Time chisels away with its constant cruel rasp.
The hold of a lover loses its grasp.
Circles of friends are too quickly diminished.
Everything started soon seems to be finished.
Each rolling stone must encounter a wall.
The dough of the universe rolled in a ball
still lives by the edict that rules us all.
Whatever has risen is certain to fall.

The very stuff of the bodies we live in
are atomic circlings that we’ve been given
to use for awhile before giving them back
to continue their course on whatever the track
is the larger extension of what we’ve been given—
the next destination to which we’ll be driven.
This circle we live from year’s start to December
is simply the circle that we can remember,
most of us hoping we’ll be up to par
for inclusion in nature’s recycling bazaar.

 

The prompt today was circle.