A children’s verse takes on a sinister tone when it’s tied to the irresponsible conduct of BP, the world’s 4th largest TNC, an organization which continues to feed us lies even as it becomes apparent that BP has perpetrated one of the worst environmental disasters in history. Even as the “top kill” procedure has failed, the lies continue: e.g. that the site is leaking 19,000 barrels of oil a day. Simple math can demonstrate why this number is ridiculously low. Hell, my garden hose could leak 350 barrels of oil a day. Try 95,000 barrels a day and no end in sight. This makes the Exxon Valdez disaster look like peeing in a swimming pool.
There’s a hole in the bottom of the sea
and a log and a bump and a frog and flea
and a child on my knee who asks:
“What will I be when I’m big like you?”
I hum a song while his mother bleeds out
in a growing pool on the kitchen floor.
She stares up through a mile of clouding water
to a sky that once teased the sea.
Afraid of dying eyes and blood at the nursery door,
I twist the child to look out the window
but the sun has turned black, the sky rains gasoline,
and crackpots scream vitriol from the street below.
“Will I be a liar and a fraud,” he seems to say,
“who pours wormwood into riverbeds and seas?
Who quotes apocalypse verses and struts
like god’s instrument come down from the mountain
robed in prophecy fulfilled
by the blood splashed on his own hands?”
“Of course not,” and I let the lie sit
in the stink of the times blowing off the water.
I know! Let’s go to the beach and play,
the sand scoured white, the shimmering heat,
the plastic bucket, inflatable fish,
bathing suit woven from synthetic fibre.
Styrofoam bobbing, umbrella toppled,
clear wrapper scudding along the beach,
a flag (dyes faded) whipped on the breeze,
the scent of coconut oil high in the nostrils.
I’ll gather it all, bundled and weighted
with chains that drag it to the bottom.
I’ll stop up that hole with its frogs and its fleas,
and the mother will rise and totter a few more steps.
Image by Chad Teer subject CC Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 License.