A little life in the Big Easy

Day 65
The oil continues to flow.
The fish, the turtles, the birds, the dolphins, the crabs continue
to live, to breathe, to breed, to feed,
in the poisonous muck.
Unable to escape it
while here I sit, complaining about the heat from within my air-conditioned nest,
able to forget for just a split second that I have it so good.
That we all have it so good.
That we aren’t living, as they are, in filthy certain death
and decay.

Day 65
A charter boat operator shot himself yesterday over in Alabama
aboard his boat
which no longer shuttled men, and families, and whomever, out to fish
and have fun
on the gorgeous Gulf.
But instead, was supposed to be a sickeningly named “vessel of opportunity” for B.P.
cleaning up what was left of his prior life, what was left of what had been so beautiful.
He couldn’t take it
and he, sadly, won’t be the last.
I say a little prayer for his family.
I know a little something about suicide, but do not pretend
to know anything close to the despair
that all those whose livelihoods depend on fishing and the water
are now feeling.

Day 65
And it’s still not fair, to anyone, to any of us, to all of us.
It’s still not fixed.
It still flows, horrible, ugly, like a growing disease, a cancer, infecting the Gulf,
infecting us all.
The animals still suffer.
The fishermen still suffer.
The families of the 11 dead oil rig workers still suffer.
And now, out beyond the Gulf, far out, but still,
there sits an area of so-called “disturbed weather.”
Talk about disturbed. We are all disturbed.
We are all sick here. Watching. Waiting. Wondering. Wandering. Wishing. Waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

Day 65.