Ingenious Simplicity
a Pantoum
What mesage does our culture bear
  In residue we leave behind -
Foam cups and plates and plastic wear,
  Our fast-food fashion's empty mind?

In residue we leave behind
  We soil the landscape in our ignorance,
Our fast-food fashion's empty mind
  Despoils a people in our arrogance.

We soil their landscape in our ignorance,
  Abuse an integral community,
Despoil their culture in our arrogance
  Fail to recognize their ingenuity.

We trash an integral community
  Of families thriving in a low-tech place;
We worship high-tech ingenuity
  and fail to see in these their and our God's face.

These families thriving at low-tech pace
  Create a beauty in simplicity
Hammer out their and our God's face.
  Designs in primitive complexity

they create a beauty in simplicity
  Form the Tree of Life, the Moon and Sun,
Designs of mystical complexity,
  Wrought in steel from old discarded oil drum.

From Tree of Life, the Moon and Sun,
  Their stories hammered out on our discard,
Their craft from old, polluting oil drum
  Turn art from our most careless disregard.

Their mythology reborn in our discard,
  What message from their culture do we bear,
Bringing home their craft with good regard,
  Displacing plastic fast-food fashion wear?