Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Life in a Garbage Can

Walking late afternoon
this beautiful fall season,
I happened across a
trash can full of
late season flies.

The flies buzzed morosely,
as if aware the early frost
soon would terminate their
short lives on the trash heap.

They gathered mournfully
around a blue puddle of
sticky liquid, almost as
though parishioners praying
around sacred wine.

The afternoon sun glinted
on their fragile wings
as they languished in
torpidity inside their
trashy plastic universe.

For a moment,
just a moment,
I understood that
I was seeing our own
world from a god's
perspective.

This beautiful garden
that we call earth
is come close to an oily
trash can, and we the
flies around a sacred
black petroleum wine.

The detrital byproducts
of modern life fill
our lives, our minds,
our bodies and our
sacred spaces with
toxicity and garbage.

Do we, too, exist in
the late afternoon fall sun?
Is our existence also as perilous
as those flies living out their
lives in a garbage can?

© Francisco G. Rodriquez, 2012

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