Glass Beach Remembered

How many broken down cars got rolled over--how many old rugs--

how much paint, lying in the rocks until it burned, or got shoved

a little farther, or crumbled as part of a larger mass of debris,

off the final boulder—perhaps one afternoon when the tide enlarged

a wild swell out of the northwest—whitecaps breaking and salt moistening,

wind fetching a thousand miles of lonesome spray;

how much obliterated and drawn offshore, tumbled in fractured rock,

sunk in cracks, rusted to the frame,

cracked open—how many glass containers can a town discard

in a hundred years, how many plates and bricks thrown over,

how much crazed crockery, drunk on the tremendous wine

of life, the fermentation of all noble fruits together with

the culmination of labors—how many old timers leaning out of

round-fendered old cars, trunks boiling with cloth insulated wire

and old batteries leaking brutal truth—we can’t say—the exact

number of kids who rode down on bikes to shoot rats after school

may never be known—if anyone died there, drunk or careless, tipped

in a can or accidentally pushed over the single wooden rail

meant to stop a rolling auto—the seagulls never left—picking

among the bones and leftovers and causing a ruckus—the wind

blew daily and only got stronger when the sun came out,

carving away at the pile in a permanent frenzy—

tearing papers loose

undermining and concentrating the burning trash, stinging the eyes

but not stopping people backing to the edge,

opening trunklids, rolling unwanted packaging material

right off the side onto the sinking mass, someone with a long pole

standing bravely above it, shoving a few items along.

#trash #debris