by Constance Woodring
I am old. Thank God. I will be dying soon. Thank God.
I made shrimp cocktail this evening. The shrimp were frozen, cooked and in a bag marked:
“no chemicals added.”
As I write this poem, I still have a taste in my mouth. As if I made swimming pool water shrimp dip.
I do not have children. I do not have grandchildren.
I do not have to feel guilty for bringing children into this world who will suffer.
As I write this poem, I hear that the Amazon jungle is on fire because of a dictator who doesn’t care
about the future of the planet. He is the cancer on “the lungs of the planet.”
I have COPD. I want to be able to breathe at least until it’s time for me to say goodbye.
I saw the movie “The Graduate.” It was a commercial for the burgeoning plastics industry.
Plastics are taking over the oceans, choking albatrosses, engorging the stomachs of whales and dolphins
and poisoning humanity’s food.
I don’t drink my well water or bottled spring water. I buy distilled water, but it comes in plastic bottles.
A class of chemicals called “neonics” are killing bees which in turn will reduce our ability to grow fruits
and vegetables.
Fewer flowers in my favorite Waterford crystal vase, to be sure.
As the years go by and I sit on my porch sipping martinis at cocktail hour, I say goodbye to monarch
butterflies, blue indigos, orioles, garden spiders, praying mantises, lady bugs and daddy longlegs who
never return to my gardens.
Bramble Cay melomys…the first rodent-like animal that has succumbed to extinction
from human-made climate change.
I never heard of it, but goodbye anyway.
I feel like the very appreciative guest who was invited to the best party on earth.
But the party is coming to an end.
Many guests have already left because of coastal flooding, ravaging hurricanes and starvation.
I don’t want to say goodbye yet, but I am not the hostess.
Constance Woodring is a 74-year-old retired therapist/educator/social activist who is getting back to her true love of writing after 45 years in her real job. She has had 19 poems published in various presses including one nominated for the 2017 Pushcart Prize.