The people came out onto the streets and prayed each season,
for as the priest and the fisherman said,
They’re with us always, so we should come and pray again.
The long ceremony goes on though it took place weeks ago.
And still, they come and pray.
For tens of decades, they’ve talked and prayed.
For years, they’ve known the days were numbered.
They thought they saw the consequences
of their inaction.
There’ll be more damage before this siege is done,
they said.
They’d always said to serve and protect
So they believed they deserved to know the answer why.
But time and again, the path seemed blocked.
There was a swift, wide-ranging mobilisation,
five and a half million feet of boom had been laid
across the water.
Legions of cops in riot gear deployed across the cities.
But now it’s very clear that the problem here
runs much, much deeper—it was more
than a single event that does its damage
in a matter of minutes, months, or days—
Billions of gallons of black crude
had been spilled in the soil and water
like a hidden, yet swiftly moving black pandemic
spewed leagues deep in soil and water—
deep, deep beneath the surface,
and drilling underground.
– from A MORE PERFECT UNION: A SERIAL POEM (forthcoming)
