RECYCLING NOTICE

We're hollow spraycans, just a breath or two inside, 
tossed in landfills for a last communion with our 
screaming kin. Bulldozers growl and crunch our 
pleated faces into those of other castaways: dog poop, 
nylons, plastic bags.  We yield gasps of potent molecules, 
muffled whispers, sometimes angry bangs.  Around us 
swirl the silent flames of punctured smoke alarms; 
at night their radiation goose steps through the 
landfill's seams, proclaims their half-life reich 
will rule the globe for fifteen-thousand years.

                    PET ROCK

       Only the underestimated understand 
             the power of patience.  

Gaia chipped her from the core two billion 
years ago, thrust her toward the light; 
she steered to the planet's skin, reposed 
in silence for six-million swoops 
around a slightly straining sun.

When a highway clattered by she crouched 
on the roadside, beamed to every passing 
being: You an engineer?   Finally she received 
a Yes-  and signaled Take me home with you! 
The man paused til his brain decoded 
What a gorgeous stone, the very thing 
to tame those papers on my desk!

Now she hunkers by his modem, seizes 
waves-  solar, sound, magnetic- and stacks 
them in her cells of silicon and quartz.  
As do cousins round the globe, she stores 
megabytes of life, waits til human sounds 
fall silent and it's time to sing her song.