“What the (expletive deleted) am I looking at here?”
The camera is brought up, zoomed in, adjusted for light differential, steadied and… no. The camera is slowly lowered and drops heart-sickeningly to hang by its neck strap. No, a picture may be worth a thousand words, but no… I’m not taking a picture of that. It wouldn’t do the moment justice and there’s no justice in it. It’s the kind of thing you’d have to experience firsthand. As well as have enough sense to process its full complexity.
In less than a thousand words: a little bird, perhaps looking for a meal amongst the plethora of scattered debris, had gotten itself ensnared in some discarded fishing line. Somehow, still managing to take flight it had sought refuge in the treetops. There, its wiry plastic captor had become entangled within its sanctuary’s branches. An obvious panicked attempt at escape had led to something terrifyingly slow and fatally painful. Now 20 feet off shore, suspended 30 feet above the shimmering waters below, it shall fly no more.
There’s no need for a picture here. We’ve seen it all before. And we have grown numb to it.
Do we not get it? Or is the “majority” too damned stupid to understand? It’s not tragic, it’s not sad, it’s not photogenic, it’s a (expletive deleted) WARNING!
We need clean water to live! We need unpolluted soil to grow food and for livestock to feed. We selfishly want both for recreation. We need nature to thrive so we can continue to breathe. We need to understand there is a growing population and finite amount of resources. We need to come to the reality that we need this planet to survive so we can! Because it sure as hell would be better off without us. And yet… we continue to contribute to its destruction, one broken bottle, one soiled diaper, one handful of tangled fishing line, at a time.
Before rolling your eyes and dismissing this as yet another “anti-littering campaign.” I personally implore you to take a look at these (taken as they were found) riverside photos. And in doing so, ask yourself one question: How long before we become the bird?
I welcome almost all questions and comments via FOCUS, or E-mail me at [email protected]. Hope to hear from ya, until then try and stay focused. See ya.
