Global warming’s a way station,
A significant marker for sure,
On the road to desertification,
Of a planet once bio-secure.

Garbage, piled high on barges,
Is towed to a waiting sea,
Where the foul load discharges,
And death grows perceptibly.

Ocean pollution is worldwide,
Refuse of one kind or another,
Dump areas too large to hide,
Necrosis faces earth-mother.

Across the deep, zones appear,
Areas we’d rather avoid,
Gulf of Mexico example to fear,
Much — of most life devoid.

Chesapeake Bay, fishery delight,
Is now on the edge of dying.
Fish and oyster harvest blight
Saddens to point of crying.

But one creature is faring well,
In these zones of bio dearth.
By billions, jellyfish numbers swell,
And spread across seas of earth.

On pollution and warmer waters
They thrive and offspring bloom,
Thousands of species, globe trotters,
Many dragging venomous doom.

Their tentacles have poison darts
That pierce skin and inject,
Destroy blood, nerves, body parts,
No antidote exists to reject.

Six hundred million years aggregation,
Perfect success in evolving way,
Ripping apart only aids propagation,
As eggs, sperm, spew and spray.

Polyps attach to ocean floor,
Static phase for multiple years.
Pollution or warmth accumulating more,
Triggers bloom of free-swimming peers.

Eating pollution, any other life-form,
Their numbers, all others overwhelm,
And monoculture seizes the norm —
Dead zones multiply, jellies at helm.

© 2007 R. Leland Waldrip