a toy-sized tugboat
bullies logs bigger than
him into manageable batches.
Cabled, they wait to be pulled
and pushed into a pile at the mill
where a blade sinks its savage teeth.
Torn bark, grain and pitch fills
cargo containers craned onto
barge cities sitting fathoms
deep and miles high.
China buys our oxygen.
We sell it cheap, then buy back
dead, wholesale consumable goods -
bankrolling some and bankrupting others.
It pollutes their asiatic factory air
and poisons the Puget Sound
playground we share with
resident orca whales.
Ediz Hook - Port Angeles, Washington - September 2014.
