Adre Marshall, Fish Hoek
Fishermen, in slow rhythmic pulls,
drag from the sea this half-moon net
and spill its slithery silver haul upon
the sand; webbed in the tangle of rope,
a crumpled shape with matted feathers
and open beak, head lolling, limp –
an albatross, from far beyond
this steady pulse of waves upon the shore;
a knife flashes, slits the bulging
belly, sliding out not a mash
of fish, but a garbage bin
of red plastic bottle tops
yellow strands of string, and nests
of fishing line hatching omens
of our future – more telling than
tea leaves at the bottom of a cup.
This flotsam and jetsam of our throw-away lives
tossed out from boats, or washed down rivers,
swirls out to sea in plastic gyres
growing ever-widening circles of death.
In a sea with plankton ousted by plastic
confetti driven a thousand miles
from land, all is now sucked
into a whirling danse macabre
spinning us into this quickening vortex
as the gyres widen, ripple out,
and reach from ocean depths to far
beyond the mountain peaks, where
in time there will be birds no more, no
albatross, nor air-borne falcon to hear
the call of the long-departed falconer