Somewhere In-Between
My hands are working hard to make a difference—
yet seem to land somewhere in-between,
to where they are and where they have always been.
My hands plucked debris off of Rockaway’s shores,
mindfully searching for every colorful speck.
Some you may recognize,
some you may not.
Each piece carries a story,
each one having been through a lot.
Look close–
you’ll find a floss pick,
a Go-Go Squeeze cap,
a Starbucks drink stopper,
the cracked shell of a plastic Easter egg,
broken food containers,
and shattered toys.
Fragments of convenience,
of solutions not yet implemented,
that long outlive the moments they served.
Without its skeleton,
plastic doesn’t vanish.
It fragments, it scatters, it disguises–
until it’s no longer seen,
only felt;
in the water, in the soil, in the body–-
leaving us, and the Earth, with a crisis to manage.
Each piece took a different path to arrive here:
some tangled in seaweed,
traveling miles through currents.
Some buried deep beneath the shifting sand,
only to be revealed by the pass of a wave or the step of a stranger.
Others blew in from a nearby street or were littered by visitors.
Those gathered and those left behind
will continue circling the planet–over oceans, into rivers, onto shores–
into the stomachs and cells of countless creatures,
including ourselves.
Eleven million new tons flood the currents each year.
With soon more plastic than fish in the sea,
This is a cause that speaks to me.
We’ve seen turtles with straws jammed in their noses,
birds’ bellies filled with bottle caps and fragments like these,
creatures tangled, suffocating in our artifacts,
or building homes out of our debris as theirs are swept away.
A gentle reminder that what we use will remain,
whether or not it returns to us in the same vein.
Over 1,500 pieces collected,
between three afternoons.
Plastic in every color, every shape, every size–
weathered and broken, but never gone.
Each one a trace of something once needed, once tossed, once forgotten.
This piece is not just a collection of waste,
it is a mirror,
a place where we can reflect and make change.
Not all knew that this solution would birth more problems,
but for those who take care,
and those who are aware,
our Earth still holds every solution we need.
As humans,
we tend to move backwards, and forwards, and land somewhere in between–
constantly finding ourselves
in a different version of where we always have been.
Luckily, it’s in our nature to solve–
to build solutions that create new problems,
to fix again, and again, and again.
A cycle that spirals, backwards and forwards,
forward and back.
With every hand that lifts a fragment from the shore,
with every act of care,
with every creation that heals instead of harms,
we make ripples that move us forward–
or at least–
somewhere new,
somewhere better,
somewhere in-between,
somewhere beyond where we have always been.