All the More Reason to Care

When summer grew hot
a creek named Turtle on the maps
was familiarly called Sulfur Creek
by the denizens of Trafford,
the small factory town it meandered through,
It was a combination of effluents.
The color came from the upstream clay deposits
mined to make the brick walls of the factory
and most of the town's old dwellings,
built to house the families of the workers
at the factory and supporting railroads.
The smell of damnation came
From the foul reek of the chemicals
dumped into the flowing waters
by the men who were thankful for the jobs
they found making circuit breakers
and laminates meant to imitate quartz.
The waters run clearer now, the factory shut.
Republican may argue with Democrat
about the reasons why any business fails,
but both agree there was nothing to celebrate
when the town's children would come home
from playing in the noisome waters,
having snuck off to play in the creek,
their clothing stained and reeking
from the poisons everyone knew were lurking
in the creek that began as clear spring waters
in the hills off Route 66 near Dunningtown.
All the more reason to care
for all flowing waters eventually seek larger water,
somewhere, be it the shores of South Carolina
or the windswept Oregon coast,
and the ocean is the foundation
of all life on this fragile planet.

Another Jigsaw effort. Words from an old High School friend Larraine Kozlowski (nee Bugiski): summer, Sulfur Creek, Trafford, old, thankful, Democrat, celebrate, ocean, South Carolina, Oregon

How to Change the World

She's 10 years old and worried,

caught up in thinking about the future
frightened of the darkness she sees ahead.
While reading her chapter books and dreaming about horses,
she can't help but see and hear the news
the grown-ups are watching on the television.

At 10 years old, her concerns should only be about
what to wear, her friends, her hairstyle, her homework,
but she's smart, she pays attention, and she cares.

She wonders at the threat of global warming.
She wonders how her paternal grandmother can support
a man named Trump who brags about assaulting women,
how he acts like a schoolyard bully
calling anyone who opposes him names.
She listens as Noni complains about taxes,
about how the voting was rigged
and how she cheered the rebellion in January
where police were viciously attacked.

"Why are Republicans acting like this?" she asks Pop Pop

her maternal grandfather.
"I'm just a little girl," she says,
"what can I do about these things?"

"YOU can change the world!" her pop pop says.
He tells her a tale of his childhood
growing up in a Pennsylvania factory town
where the air was filled with soot
from factory smoke stacks fired with coal,
where the local creek that should have held trout
instead was orange and stank of sulfur
from the factory’s unregulated effluent.
He tells her how unions built the middle class
and gave his father a better life,
how taxes pay for the roads, bridges,
firemen, police and schools,
the things we all depend upon.
And he tells her how when he was young
that you could be denied service in a restaurant
simply because of the color of your skin.

"We were young, like you,” Pop Pop tells her,
“but enough of us wondered
what can we do about these things?
So we spoke up! We said "Enough!"
And we found that together we were strong.
We learned that one individual can make a difference!"

Pop Pop gives her books to prove
that she, just a ‘little girl,’
Can make a difference.
Books about Greta, Malala,
Amanda, Ruby and Claudette.
All young women who were brave
and willing to say "Enough!"

"But Pop Pop," she asks.
"What about old men like Kevin McCarthy?

They have so much power!"

Pop Pop laughs,
"that corrupt old fool couldn't hold a candle to you!
You are the storm coming he fears the most!
But pay attention. It will be up to you
and others like you,
to fix what he is breaking."

Another Jigsaw effort. Words provided by old high school acquaintance Joseph Miller. Words are global warming, Trump, Republicans, taxes, voting, rebellion, Pennsylvania, Kevin, January, unions.