THE WHITE BAG BLUES
Such beauty on this street of elms
Where the winds buffet flags
Up in the tree’s lush green leaves
Are bright white Walmart bags
And over there against a fence
The objects each one sees
You bet . . . it’s plastic Walmart bags
From someone’s groceries
Something just whipped past my legs
This cold and windy day
Uh huh, an errant Walmart bag
Ballooning all the way
Alas, they’re even in my dreams
Fluttering just like rags
They wave from everything in sight
Those flying Walmart bags
If I could have the value now
Of those bags seen everywhere
On trees, on fence, and traffic lights
I’d be a millionaire
Perhaps I should collect them all
As greedy as I am
Then bundle them in thousand-packs
And sell them back to Sam
c 7/24/02 Phyllis DeWitt-VanVleck
This reminds me of a story written by an 84 year old woman in a creative writing class I conducted years ago. Her observations of those same bags, in her case not exclusive to Wal-Mart but ALL plastic bags, likened them to different colored birds that littered the landscape, getting trapped in trees and bushes. I enjoyed her view, but I especially like your idea of collecting them all and selling them back to SAM, certainly a more “green” approach. Enjoyed this! (Hope you’re resting well and will soon be fully recovered.)
Thank you for your comments, Alice. I enjoy reading them. The bags, to me, are not even close to colored birds. They are an ugly blight on the landscape. I want to get out there and gather them all up and dump them on the Waltons. My daughter and I have purchased the cloth bags now and they are so much nicer to use. They don’t rip out, for one thing.
I am well on the road to recovery. Hate those nasty tasting pills I have to take right now but, I guess it wasn’t the Lords time to take me. Right now, I am working on my life’s story and then I have more poems to write.