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              Bag Hell?

         (to my niece and to
Dylan Thomas, who wrote "Fern Hill")

Now when I was just a rug rat under the poplar leaves
above the Leghorn house, complacent as the sky was blue,
the life we led was simple - very;
nourished on Blossom's milk,
veggies from the garden at the front;
school lunches in wax-paper; we'd no plastic in those sad days --
the groceries cardboard box a-rattling in the pick-up truck
or in paper bags -- brownest,
no nice plastic in those awful days.

You're so right my dear to stockpile wonderful plastic bags.
Oh, save a plastic bag, for wasting is a sin, so wrong!
Why, 'twas within my lifetime only
God gave these bags to us,
unruined and unleaking in the rain.
So pure and dazzling. For the book store and food store, you know
they are so fine, no boxes or brown bags so handy-like,
and they rustle so sweetly
in unbiodegradable joy.

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