Lord Help This Dirty Blue Marble

“Momma? Do you think we use too much plastic?”

A simple question, asked by a curious daughter to her hard working mother

We’ve just come home with armfuls of groceries

Each fashioned with a flimsy, pliable Walmart bag like a summery jumpsuit

“Yes, we do.”

A solemn reply, answered by a wise woman to her naïve kid

We finish putting our packaged produce in its semi-permanent home

We trade in the small talk for long

sighs

I wander onto social media for solace, only to be halted by

Influencers loudly trying to promote their products to fix an ever present and growing problem

“LOOK at how BAD this is, but YOU can HELP!!! For $100.00 PLUS SHIPPING, you can…”

They lose me

I want to help

I know we use too much plastic

No amount of Photoshop can hide the junk clogging up our beloved oceans

Or the animals suffocating like flowers in an opaque smog

The cure for this plague is gasping

rasping

gripping

ripping

At the seams, begging to be found

But what can the average working family do?

Our pleas get lost in the white noise

It’s difficult to shift the sound in our favor

When the corporate giants have their head in the clouds

Rather than in the trenches

I’ve taken to whispering a prayer for forgiveness to Jesus

Everytime I eat a piece of candy

For the fish or bird or human that mistakes its discarded wrapper for a golden coin

And not a cry for help