Toxic Oil-Slicked Nature
A sandy beach
I look down upon.
Even as humped and reflective faces,
these begetting kernels of sand
glowing forth with light of ancestral giving,
sand swirls about reminding of still further
diminutive powers of ocean's spawning ever-revealing life.
As the sun reclines to rest,
my feet caress the course yet yellow and white granuals,
embracing Time's forever gift of mystery and pride
creation’s sleepless watch.
The gentle sea's vibration,
like the sound of a fathoms-deep heart,
holds my own close to its yearning,
its passion grieving as whispers,
its remonstrative will resting not,
its natural language of song
sympathetic to the clutter of my being,
besieged as it is with distraction's invention.
Weeping now,
I ponder.
How inept this language invented as words,
competing as it does with ancient wisdom's simple sights and sounds,
a hubristic effort to deny we are but
a blink of evolution's eye.
I sit now upon this sandy coating of remembrance,
marveling at its will to preserve
one of Nature's small gifts of indomitable resolve,
asking nothing but our respect for self,
even as globules of black ooze
invades this peaceful momen,t
residue from decade ago loss of conscience,
man's inability to care-take the home
given with bounty of feast,
beauty of soul,
symphony of instruments to cultivate,
merging all our rainbows of vision.
I bend now to remove the bulbous floating atop cancer,
a species' dis-ease,
once deemed Nature's sensibility,
now labeled as greed by some,
ignorance by others,
a tragic cycle by most.
My hands now of stain and memory hold steady,
as beside the sludge of darkness
a blackened nest floats by,
once of eggs and future,
now but a mother's remorse,
a twig and grass casket,
where fledgling life once respected its fair space
among the sane and beautiful,
now but a toxic-laced
oil-entombed suffocation.
My tears drop on
more than a sandy beach.
Before me are nightmares being repeated
from the abyss.
Add to that the time bomb of the BP spill that still affects a large portion of the Gulf of Mexico east of the huge "dead zone" spreading from the effluent of the Mississippi River's outflow of every chemical coming down every river in the great central United States drainage system. And you have a surefire way of creating a situation that will backfire in time.
In the meantime, enjoy the pristine West Florida beaches, while they last. And for those with the money to make the trip, observe the Flower Garden Banks National Sanctuary in the middle of the Gulf supposedly protected by the oil industry.
Ron