This is an edited version of the poem that first appeared in Fountain of Youth (Vine Leaves Press, 2016), p: 32–33.
In the sixties, America sold us
a fable about a marvelous technology
that produces nutrients,
claiming to feed the hungry.
We weren’t told of the toll
of the dream that seemed
sincere when they seared
the cost of production
and declared all cans cheap.
Abundance
became the newest motif,
and we bleated with glee, as always,
but unlike our heifers, who inadvertently graze
on matter unfit to feed bacteria,
we consciously agreed,
and called for widespread speed
to feed the hungry, and ended
up feeding the idle, the fatigued,
who eat their boredom
from plastic containers
and tip waiters for adding steam.
They called their revolution Green.
They should have called it invisible for the privilege
it bestows on agribiz corporations
robbing nature of its resources.
And the globalization
in the eighties, the nineties, and the new millennium,
helped secure the production of food for firms
well beyond tax brackets
with zip codes on different continents.
I dread depicting the consequence
of terminating the flow of global shipments.
Rumors, now, are flittering, though,
while Think Tanks ponder on paper:
How to get them Ayrabs
to sell their water
to the highest bidder.
