Day 3

Didn’t like today’s prompt, to be quite frank. I’m always resistant to requirements on a title, especially one where the rule is to use a word in a particular way, in this case to use the word “partly” as the beginning of a phrase of some sort. Today’s offering isn’t as good as I’d like, perhaps because I butted up against the prompt so hard. It took me probably half an hour just to settle on the title. But it’s of a piece with my other recent work, which is taking on a decidedly environmental tone (and not a hopeful one either).

Partly to Blame

Our garden, four feet to a side,
half-dead cherry tomatoes
and poblano peppers stunted
from months in starter pots.
Not enough for even one meal.
We drive to the grocery,
select fresh grapes from Chilé,
Columbian coffee, asparagus
from the other coast. We grow
condos here now, not oranges.
Our enlightened stance? We fill
recycling bins with empty
Argentinian wine bottles,
plastic produce boxes; we carpool,
bring canvas bags to the store
(or try to remember). We’re not
the worst, don’t drive more car
than we need, don’t frighten
bicyclists. That’s salve,
though, for consciences sore
from laying on our lazy asses
and passing off the blame.