The thought that we
must eliminate single-use disposable goods
must eliminate plastics
proceeds not from environmentalism but from Arcadianism
humans for a hundred thousand generations had to cling to dead things
good linen, stone houses, stone tools, bone needles, bronze, steel, brass, gold
cling to a scrap of cloth like a grandmother, for it too cares for you through the winter
this Arcadian longing for those lost generations is anti-life
life is not tasteful
life is not restrained
life is not frugal
life is not conservative
life is not lasting
those are not virtues for life
those are virtues for human capital accumulation
life is exuberant
life is a wild, ever-changing fire upon the surface of the earth
life is algae blooming in a red tide
life is ceaseless but never constant
life is the merciless
life is the struggle of a thousand salmon that leap frantically past the bears
before laying five thousand eggs, destroying their viscera with steroids
life is a sequoia seed awaiting its awakening by fire
to sprout in the ashes
life is eager dandelions growing brightly in the cracks of the sidewalk
life is desperate air plants drilling for moisture in the rain forest bark
life is a thousand-year-old ginkgo slowly consumed by a fungus in its heartwood
protecting its delicious nuts with the stench of ten thousand corpses
life is unstable, exciting, impermanent, and full of death
life is refulgent purple jacarandá flowers covering you in brilliant yellow pollen
life is a peaceful marsh where a crocodile is resting just under the water
when a mushroom is fabricated overnight in the forest
more intricate than the carvings of any sculptor
more beautiful than the brushstrokes of any painter
it is made of a single-use disposable biopolymer
and is gone inside a week
trees regret not shedding leaves made of single-use disposable biopolymer
wolves ferociously devour single-use rabbits made of biopolymers and leave disposable droppings
humans had to cling to dead scraps of cloth and care for them like newborn babies
could not change raiment with the seasons as the snow hare or the goldfinch do
because a spool of yarn was a day's work
a century ago a tarnished mirror was a sign of wealth
today they lie discarded in the gutters
those who know the secrets of life and the nature of matter
can use its own materials for their products
they are no longer limited to heavy, fragile clay, rusting iron, and dead wood
but can use the diaphanous resins we call plastics
to carry water or adorn their children
they can evaporate aluminum onto glass that floated on tin
their children can race carbon-fiber bicycles
a cellophane wrapper, a sterile catheter, a condom
betoken the liberation of the humans from the toil of a hundred thousand generations
and pitiless disease that killed one out of every five children before adulthood