To the Mother of Waters, To Whom We May No Longer Pray
Mother of Waters
we abuse you.
Here comes the Deluge we were warned of,
the blasted tower, the great Sacrifice.
Mother of Waters,
grave of the slaves
and of those who would not be enslaved
long home, resting place
heart’s ease to the troubled mind;
Mother of waters
speaker of Creole, French, Spanish, English,
Native languages, Native languages lost
African languages rooted now in the New World;
Our Lady of Purification
Star of the Sea
Yemaya
Mari
La Siréne,
Dolphin Woman,
we have turned our backs on you.
Mother of Waters, your children are dying
Ridley’s sea turtle
loggerhead sea turtle
green sea turtle
sperm whales, sei whales
dolphins…
Mother of Birds, how many hatch this spring
to suffocate or starve, abandoned by starving parents
piping plover
least tern
oystercatcher
avocet…
Suffocating in the oil we drill
starving from the oil we burn
dying in the oil we combust to carbon dioxide
to heat the planet
acidify the oceans
turn the living garden into a greenhouse
where creatures gasp for air.
We can’t live without burning it
for light for heat for medicine for driving to work
we can’t live without burning it
for television and Xboxes and cell phones and roller coasters
to kill our time.
So we kill phytoplankton
zooplankton
krill
shrimp
the bottom of the food web
those tiny, insignificant beings
upon whom everything depends.
We kill the oysters we love on the half-shell
jumbo shrimp
the bluefin tuna for our sushi
the crabs on the table
the crabs at the bottom of the bay
that eat the remains of the dead.
We have killed the bayou the bay
the coral reefs, sea-grass beds, Elmer’s Island,
Grande Isle, Plaquemines Parish, the Florida Keys.
Mother of Waters, Madame La Lune,
we did it ourselves.
we can’t ask you to save us
from our insatiable hunger
our mainline addiction worse than cocaine or sugar,
our thirst for novelty, our hunger for speed.
So we kill the gentle manatees, with pups at the nipple
blue whales, greatest of all mammals
fin whales
fearsome sharks, the terrible swordfish,
as we kill the roseate spoonbills
wood storks
ibises
egrets…
As the shore goes, so goes the culture.
We are killing the soft voices of Creole,
music of New Orleans,
defiant joy of the second line,
the horns and the beads, the feather head-dresses
of the Mardi Gras Crewes.
Eleven died in the explosion.
Thousands more will go down:
the fishermen lose their boats
the families lose their houses
men lose themselves in beer and whiskey
children lose their families
women lose their living and their hopes
there’s no more fish in the sea
you can’t give those boats away…
Tonight at the table there is no red snapper;
nobody comes to look at the sea tonight.
Someone hands out small checks
someone checks the map for the next place to drill
a family fills the tank with gas to drive inland, away from the sea.
Mother of Waters
oh Gran Bois, Grandmother of the Sacred Forest
we can’t even learn wisdom from this catastrophe
like children playing with matches
who burn down the house
we don’t even know we did it to ourselves.
So we bury them under the sand
with diesel bulldozers
the bodies of herons
of gannets
of rails
of ducks
of osprey
of sand pipers
the brown pelican who dove straight into the water
and came up choking.
In the bars of Louisiana tonight
someone carries sweating bottles of beer to the table
for the workers who fought the oil all day.
Someone lights a candle in the cathedral in New Orleans and mumbles a prayer
someone lays a blue cloth on the altar, sacrifices a fresh egg and seven tears
someone lies on the floor to listen to the surf
that smells of salt and oil.
Out in the shallows the crabs are dying
in the marsh the frogs and crickets die
the birds die, whales die
the fishing boats come back from laying containment booms
hulls stained black
the shrimpers have collected the last shrimp from the beds
their fingers stick together with oil.
Mother of Waters, Mother of Storms,
Lady Oya of the torn curtains, Grandmother Hurricane,
we are still not wise enough to listen
to the voices of the dead,
the voices of the ancestors
the voices of the sea.
We can’t hear the waves
telling us what we sacrificed
on the altar of our sickness
our altar of capital.
We would rather die than give up the oil.
We would rather burn down our house.
We would rather kill every living thing.
We would rather plow the bodies of brown pelicans under the sand.
We would see the manatees rotting in the now-tropical sun
the sweet green fields of the South turn to desert
the great Amazon turning to smoke
the canyon on fire, the last glacier melted
the ocean glutted with plastic, gray with oil
the children picking through garbage on bare asphalt.
This is the choice we have made
Yemaya
Star of the Sea
Aphrodite, wave-born
we make it every single day.
Who can we pray to now?
As your children go down silently
through thousands of feet
of oiled ocean water.
Plastic bags blow in the streets of Seattle,
plastic circles in the great Pacific garbage gyre.
Mother of Waters
what would it take for us to stand mourning on the beaches
of Louisiana, of Mississippi, of Alabama,
of Mexico, of Texas
the white sand beaches of Florida
the Outer Banks of the Carolinas
on the shores of Puget Sound,
Chesapeake Bay, Long Island Sound, San Francisco Bay
on the banks of the Potomac
on the shores of the Thames
on the banks of the Seine
all along the Yellow River
and say
No more oil.
How many tears will we shed
How many die in the explosions
How many dead in the waters
How many families lose their homes
How many beaches poisoned
How many billions in quarterly profits
How many forests on fire
How many crops devoured by insects
How many climate refugees on the move
How many springs infiltrated by salt
How many glaciers melted
How many more drilling rigs
How many more cars
How many more entertainment systems
How many more jet flights to see what’s left of the world --
Before we stand together on the ruined beaches
trying to catch our breaths in the oil-tainted air
children weeping
everyone hungry
bones of the dead birds scattered in thick waters
no one in the deep to hear us
no answering voice comes back to us
before we say it --
Mother of Oceans
when will we say it?
No more oil
No more oil
No more oil.
