Abundance and Scarcity

Once a year, my friend Melissa Haertsch gets me to write a poem for a poetry/visual art collaboration she organizes. This year's theme is water, and here is this year's result:

Abundance and Scarcity

Lake Seneca is full,

like the septic tank,

so we wash with dribbles

and flush sparingly

while neighbors spray

the suburban carpet

that has replaced wetlands

outside Milwaukee.

Hindus worship the sacred

Ganges polluted by Coke,

as villagers protest

their thirst.

The view from space

reveals undivided blue,

expansive but salty—

the cause of future wars.