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ME, HIM, HER & YOU
BY BILL BERTIN
Me: So — did you hear the news about the further
expanding hole in the ozone?
Him: Yeah — but it always sounds to me like they're
talking about a hole in a balloon.
Me: It's a serious problem.
Him: Yeah — well, if it was a balloon, it would be down
around our ears wouldn't it?
Me: Really, the environment is a serious problem, not
something to joke about.
Her: Dinner will be ready soon.
Him: Get me a beer, will you?
Me: Do you have any idea what's being done by people
in this city and all the other places where they're fouling the
world's air, the oceans, the life of this planet?
Him: Man, give me a break, wll you? Every time we
see you lately, you're on about this garbage. I work all day
hauling bags of money, coins and checks from one bank to
another and that's all the environment I need. I can't do any
more about it than you or anybody else.
Me: But that's wrong, wth everyone. No one wants to
think about it — do anything, so the world's going all to hell wrfiile
people sit around refusing to take responsibility.
Him: Look, sport — we live in a crawled world where
everyone is hustling to get somewhere, to live a decent life, get
enough to eat, enough to live on. We ain't in the dark ages where
people sat around a fire getting their food with bows and arrows.
The Industrial Revolution was just that -a change in how people
lived, from pastoral to big city, big industry. Business is in the
business of making junk for people to consume. So smoke gets
in the air, chemicals get in the rivers, what can you expect?
With so many people - who's going to stop them from tossing
their leftovers across your fence or into a stream?
Her: Dinner is almost ready.
Him: Get me another beer, will you?
Me: I don't disagree — but we can't just ignore what's
going on environmentally or there won't be anything left that's
not fouled or rotten or lost forever because we just let it happen,
just let our world go all to hell. People have got to stand up and
tell the polluters of the world. Enough! \Ne've got to save it for
the generations to come.
Him: Yeah. You want a beer, man?
Me: No. Thanks.
Him: Look, sport — I got the word for you. The Meek
Shall Inherit The Earth — when it becomes a bare rock! There's
really nobody in charge anymore. It's got out of hand, too much
going on. Nothing works. Like the UN — it's useless. The time
for a world organization that would guide nations to do the right
thing, especially stop the killing and blowing things all to hell, is
long past. It's every dog for himself. And in this country of ours it
works the same way. Everybody is out for his and to hell with the
other guy and anything that stands in the way, including your
environment.
Me: Oh man, that's such a hopeless attitude.
Him: Look — with five billion people in the world, how
you going to get any group, let alone nations, to agree on any
thing?
PEDRO PALMA (LISBON, PORTUGAL)
Me: But we’ve got to! We've got to start, make a begin
ning!
Him: Like with most problems — you start at the end.
When things get bad enough, people will do something, the
government will step in, like a nation-at-war situation. Nobody's
going to pay attention till their drawling in it, till it's up to their
eyebrows.
Her: Anyone hungry? We can go in and eat soon. Oh,
let me get you an ashtray.
Me: Thanks. Do you have any matches?
Bill Berlin has spent much of his long life on the world’s
oceans as a merchant seaman. He lives in Portland and writes
poetry (NOTE, OctoNovo'94).
THE ROSE
pmw 'Boohs
2, j 4 Tenth Street
J^tvria, Oregon
3 ¿f-'363
I had a little ferret named Mimi.
She was musky and I loved her.
But she got sick and died.
I cried.
We bought a small rosebush,
and planted it above her.
Last winter's freeze nearly killed it, but it survived.
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Now I have this fantasy, this dream,
in which I lean forward,
to smell the first rose when it has bloomed.
. ..Aaaahhhh.... Mimi!
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