Plastic Islands Adrift Poem by Greg Gaul

So where's our lauded critical thinking, wisdom of the ages,
When far at sea unbridled plastic pollution rages?

Two large patches of plastic debris
Are circling in the North Pacific sea.

The greatest minds of our day can't solve our drifting affliction,
Nor can they plan to rid us of our destructive plastic addiction.

While ecologists debate the issues watching with indignant ire,
The trash still forever spins in its garbage gyre.

It takes five hundred years for plastics to decompose,
When photodegradation breaks it down, no one really knows.

Microplastics inside marine life and the fish we eat,
May well mark our downfall and eternal defeat.

We humans are certainly subject to constant denial
But plastic microbes in our food is simply too vile.

Straws 'n spoons, bottles 'n caps, bags 'n toys turn into tiny pieces,
A wry laugh to think this is a fitting end for our species.

Eight million metric tons of plastic trash go into the sea each year,
Rather than protecting us, it makes new pollutants that we so fear.

Our single use and dumping rules could be made to be sensible,
Instead it's confused discarding practices that are reprehensible.

No country can or will step up and take responsibility,
Our world sits back to see our oceans succumb to instability.

When or how will we rise up and solve this floating problem?
Is there anyone who can find a reasoned place to start from?

Or are we destined like our trash adrift in a sea abyss,
Waiting for some distant power to point to what we miss?

For solving this is no short-term task that we can do alone,
It calls for us to come together to save our planet home.