what it was: toilet paper collected against shortages
then released into the wind as an act of anti-hoarding,
plastic bags from a big grocery store shopping sent up
to roam free to protect overloaded landfills
what it will be: an unpalatable lunch for larger and then
smaller and smaller and then larger and larger animals,
or if it’s toilet paper maybe a family gathering, a joyful
return to the site of former happy days in the woods
what it is: rubbish of course, but lit and rather lovely,
kite tails caught out of the hands of inexperienced fliers,
doves only temporarily snagged and about to take flight,
their tail feathers spread in the light as they ready for takeoff
the power of it: those lovely dark intricacies and the fans
of white light, lit and fluttering among them, the oddity:
such a tangle of what is wrong and what is right commented on
by camera and sun, their take on one moment of our destruction
♦
Judy Gaudet is a poet living in Belfast, Prince Edward Island. She has edited an anthology of 150 poems from more than 100 poets telling Canada’s story, called 150+: Canada’s History in Poetry, (Acorn 2018). Collections of her own poems are Her Teeth Are Stones (Acorn 2005) and Conversation with Crows (Oberon 2014). www.judygaudet.weebly.com
♦♦♦
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