A Little Life Saved Today
On the might-have-been pristine
sand of Ocean Beach,
clear, with the late-afternoon sun balming
me
runners
childers
mothers & fathers (the guardians of the inheritors)
picnickers
smokers
surfers
fishers
I saw the hulking black crows chowing down on slick sellophane
and thought of the footage I’d seen of the bodies
split
open,
the feathers, the bones, the skin laid
waste
to make plain the carnage,
to show the mis-guided hunger and our (see list above) appetite
for plastic.
I walked slowly toward the birds and they retreated dropping the
torn, chewed-over strips of candy wrappers.
I gathered they still had fear of my kind, and I gathered
up their would-have-been meal in my hand.
Sorry, I said, for taking your food, but it ain’t. Nipping this in the beak, right now.
I might be saving your life, you see. You can’t digest:
sellophane strips (7)
cigarette butts (8)
bottle tops (4)
take-out containers (1)
foil wrappers (6)
plastic cups (2)
fishing line (2)
I filled a (plastic) bag with my haul and walked along the water’s edge,
the ocean giving me all I wanted
on this afternoon, free of work and the circular chatter of my thoughts.
A little life saved today.
Written By: Bette McDonnell
Visual Art By: Kerim Harmanci
About the Artist: Kerim Harmanci – raised in PA and NY – is a San Francisco photographer and student at City College, currently taking darkroom and lighting classes as well as peer mentoring and doing aerial drone photography on his days off.
Forum Literary Magazine 