The Worth of Trash

Alien child, where are you from?
So different, so strange
What do you think of
When others show you a toy, a spoon,
A spool of thread?
I see, he says, a city
Where all
Is perfectly imperfect
They use things and then
Throw them away
They’ll never be used again, and so are
Thought of as waste
He whispers, with that Can they use
For throwing things away
I could start a band
From that pile of trash
I could recycle enough
To feed people who are hungry
Why don’t you do that, I ask
With all the things that are wrong
In this world, you could make
Something right
Because, he says, it only goes well
For a Little
People give when they see others giving
Once the giver is gone
Their good things Disappear
And they end their lives as they began them
Without motion or motivation
Help them, I say to him
They must learn to help themselves, he replies,
Then this world will not be perfectly imperfect.
It will be imperfectly perfect