Environ-mental & Refuse

My personal journey into environmentalism started very early right after my parents divorced. My father then lived with my grandmother I would regularly visit them on the weekends. My grandmother was a child of the great depression and as such taught me the value of things, of not wasting! Over the years she instilled these habits into me. I often watched as the world around me became steadily less focused on fixing things to a throw-away society of over-packaging and cheaply designed obsolescence. Woven into the fabric of these things came a time of the loss of pride in manufacturing and slowly drifted into a loss of pride in workmanship this became the age of outsourcing and employer and employee loyalty slowly declined (and still is in my opinion) This first poem was written in these reflections...

Environ-mental

I was raised by the wolves

in the hunger and shortage

From a dyed in the wool

Grandmother’s acute visage

Depressions daughter schooled

In need didn’t waste privilege

She saved old string on spools

“Gum bands” on the doorknob ridge

Used paper bags as wrap tools

She would hang on the fridge

Blank sides of paper refuse

She would make Christmas fudge

In old coffee cans reused

I know and please don’t judge

I’ve sampled much of her fruits

Through the ration book drudge

And the rubber drive pursuits

Even her stockings begrudged

She would never refute

She saw the world change trudge

To a throw-away purview

But in me, she did nudge

That everything has its use

© 2019 Robert Trakofler

Flash forward to today (and perhaps not surprisingly) I own an antique store and vegetarian restaurant called the Zenith here in the city of Pittsburgh the home of some of the worst environmental impacts in this countries history. My business is not of your typical model I have a very low waste process all of my clippings and cuttings go to a worm farm and compost facility all of the leftover food gets donated at the end of each business week to local shelters and people in need I waste nothing! (thank you, grandma)

The antique store side with vintage clothing jewelry and also an art gallery is also not your typical place. What I don't sell as is I will remake into different things as pictured above with my "lampchiere" I love to repurpose things into new things I even have a bin I put outside the door I fill with free things of stuff I cant repurpose and doesn't sell! (On a side note all of the art I have in the gallery all of the money from the sales goes directly to the local artists) Below is a picture of a typewriter wall sconce I made.

This brings me to the last poem I wrote about refuse, A subject very personal to me that I will explain afterward...

Refuse

I see treasure on the ground

Discarded pleasure left unfound

Battered and broken baubles

Matter to swain for my cobbles

Author of refuse comprise

Refuses this debris demise

Gentle hands upraise to praise

The fragile downcast piece malaise

To fix with a loving gaze

The grace within to shine ablaze

© 2021 Robert Trakofler

I was born with a processing disorder despite having a relatively high intelligence I always performed badly over the years this gave me a strong sense of self-doubt and a feeling of rejection and of being unable to fit in with societal norms, I also experienced being raped when I was very young these feelings culminated into a very negative self-image I felt very much like human refuse. That is why now I see the beauty in everything the value in what most people throw away and it fuels my need to fix things and make art out of refuse like the poem says "I refuse this debris demise" and this has become my life's philosophy and is very often reflected in my poetry. If we all took the time to see what we are doing what we are wasting how our day-to-day existence impacts the world we can all become environ-mentalists.

I have two grandchildren and another on the way, it is my sincere wish that we can give this planet the proper inheritance that they deserve. It all starts with awareness and with awareness our actions will collectively change and with that so will hope for the future. We are a part of the planet we have never been separate from the planet, this mentality must end! I often quote myself in saying "we must put the nurture back into our nature if we as a species are to survive." Thank you for taking the time to read my scrawls I always appreciate it:)