PLASTICENE SUITE
1. ROCK-LIKE OBJECT ON BEACH
The Paleocene the Eocene
the Miocene the Pleistocene
and now we're here: the Plasticene.
Look, a rock made of sand
and one of lime, and one of quartz,
and one what of what is this?
It's black and striped and slippery,
not exactly rock
and not not.
On the beach at any rate.
Petrified oil, with a vein of scarlet,
part of a bucket maybe.
When we're gone and the aliens come
to puzzle out our fossils:
will this be evidence?
Of us: of our too-brief history,
our cleverness, our thoughtlessness,
our sudden death?
2. FAINT HOPE
You could turn it into oil
by cooking it: this has been done.
First you'd have to collect it.
Also there would be a smell.
Some supermarkets have banned it.
Also drinking straws.
Maybe there will be a tax
or other laws.
There are microbes that eat it-
they've been discovered.
But the temperature has to be high:
no good in the north sea.
You can press it into fake lumber
but only some kinds.
And buiding blocks, ditto.
You can scoop it out of rivers
before it gets to the sea.
But then what? What do you do with it?
With the overwhelming ongoing
never-ending outpouring.
3. FOLIAGE
"a scrap of black plastic - the defining foliage of the oil age"
MARK COCKER, OUR PLACE
It sprouts everywhere, this foliage.
Up in the trees, like mistletoe,
or caught in the marshes
or blooming in the ponds like waterlilies,
gaudy and frilly,
rippling as if alive
or washing onto the beaches, neo-seaweed
of torn bags, cast wrappers, tangled rope
shredded by tides and rocks.
But unlike true foliage it's rootless
and gives nothing back,
not even one empty calorie.
Who plants it, this useless crop?
Who harvests it?
Who can say Stop?
4. MIDWAY ISLAND ALBATROSS
Inside the barebones
ribs it's all bright colour:
a tag a ribbon
a failed ballon
a strip of silver foil
a spring a wheel a coil
What should have been there
inside the sad bag
of wispy feathers
inside the dead bird child?
It should have been the fuel
for wings, it should have been
upsoaring over a clean sea;
not this glittering mess,
this festering nestwork
5. EDITORIAL NOTES
One note might be (she said)
to pull back somewhat
from exhortation and despair
Instead (she said)
try to provide
an experiential inder
understanding of human
human (she said) impact
human pact
then let people
let people come
let people come to their own
conclusions.
Own their conclusions.
She said:
There is some danger in this.
Plasticene Suite. Dearly. Chatto & Windus. Penguin Random House UK. 2020. Margaret Atwood.
