I've been working on this poem for a while now. I know I can't shut up about how concerned I am about the storm clouds gathering all around us. I was worried that it wasn't healthy how much I'm researching these problems, but I'm starting to doubt myself less. The simple fact is that I'm utterly convinced that the way of life humanity has evolved into is poisoning us both physically and emotionally, and it's getting harder and harder for me to participate in it complacently.

I've been researching "eco-villages" online and I think that is very likely to be my next step after Hawaii. That is, if things haven't unraveled to such a degree by a year from now that relocation is an unimaginable luxury. In all of this I place my highest faith in God, but I don't think He created people to live in air-conditioned boxes in which they never really need anybody else.

Anyway, here's my utopia poem.

The Gyre

<>There's no sense wringing our hands over it
but in the middle of the Pacific Ocean
humanity
has begotten
an indestructible floating nebula
of plastic
that depending on whom you ask
is almost as big as this
country we love so much. <> 

The Gyre. <> 

It is in the middle of
a marine desert
where no one ever goes
except to gawk and shake
his head over
the folly of our species. <> 

You cannot take a picture of it
because it almost isn't there
poisoning animals who
aren't us
but if you drop a net
and pull it out
there it is:
your own handful
of the island we created. <> 

The Gyre drifts slowly
in circles
where horses used to drown
betrayed by their colonialist
owners who had no wind.
It grows by the day
as patient
and impartial
as a continent. <> 

On the Gyre we will finally
roost
and we will do it right this time.
We will harvest enough for everyone
and no more.
We will make our own
music
with strange and wonderful instruments
and no one will sell 10,000 copies
and no one will post the bootlegged video
on YouTube
because everyone will know us, anyway,
and if you want, we'll come over and play
that song you love for you after dinner.
What else have we got to do?

<>On the Gyre, people will talk for a long time
on porches
and if you need a cup of milk
for your coffee one morning
you can borrow it from your neighbor
instead of driving to the store. <> 

You can't drive on the Gyre anyway
because it is too fragile
and there is nothing to power
traffic
so on the Gyre you must walk
or take a paddle boat
there will be no more parking lagoons
no more half-crazed people
giving the finger to the SUV
that just cut them off
children will never be hit by cars
and can get to their violin lessons
without waiting for a ride. <> 

Pinochle will be taught in gym class
and families will play after lunch
and if they get bored
or tired of each other
they will take a nap,
instead of staring at a box
who doesn't know them. <> 

On the Gyre men and women will meet
each other through friends
and during times of recreation,
instead of through another box,
and they will shake hands
and care for each other
despite differences of opinion
or temperament. <> 

On the Gyre there will be nothing but time
and you can read the books
the old world threw away
when you don't
feel like talking
when something big washes up
you can use it as a drum
and listen to your friend
who loves to play. <> 

There will be dancing on the Gyre.
Oh yes!
Sometimes they will dance
for hours
together with the drums
and women will sing
and men will chant
happy songs
about the sunsets that paint the sky
with fierce colors
colors of God. <> 

When old people become sick
the Gyre people will take care of them
and they will die
surrounded by people who know them
and love them.
When young people become sick
they will be cared for unconditionally
and nobody will demand them
for a copay.
There will be pain on the Gyre.
There will be death.
But there will be birth, too.
The people put forth
and God takes back
and the people weep
but they will be comforted. <> 

The Gyre people will care for each other
because each other is all they have
and some of them
will faintly remember
the world that spawned this happy land
with the stuff it thought it
had used up.
A world in which other people
were taken far too lightly
a world in which
it was all too easy
to get by without
making a single
thing
without singing a single
note
without dancing a single
step
without loving
really loving
a single
other
person.