Sunday Morning and the Gulf Oil Spill
by: Abby Caplin on May 30th, 2010 | 8 Comments »
George Stephanopoulos is at it again.
The earth is bleeding, 5,000 feet below
the water’s surface of
the Gulf of Mexico,
an opened artery flowing, and
without the surgeon’s deft suture,
mortally wounded
While America wakes to
Sunday morning “This Week,”
where it’s all about PR,
who looks good and who
looks bad in Washington,
what we should think about the
ineffectual response, wasting time
talking about the time wasted and
how politicians could look better.
I change channels and hear
reporters joke
there’s no one to interview,
because not enough
sorry enough looking
real people have yet been affected, so
they have only the pelicans to poll,
never considering they might be
too tarred to respond;
We no longer need canaries.
Planet earth is in the emergency room,
and we have no life support.
George ends with photos
of fallen soldiers, and “Oh-My-God”
music— the cue to honor,
as we ponder the message
over coffee and cereal.
Next programming is
Nascar, with its siphoning zip of engines
converting Mother-blood to exhaust
in defiant euphoria,
speeding in circles,
cheering through the sheer waste.



Wow, Abby, that is right on! I am so sorry about this, and I was walking the dog on the clean beach yesterday, thinking about it, and the whole difficult engineering feat it will take to fix; instead of blaming and shaming, why can’t we agree to cooperate and help, and then not let more underwater drilling happen! And someone walking on the beach told me that there are some people trying to restart the whaling industry. As if killing whales needs to happen! As if they haven’t seen the devastating movie about the dolphins being killed in Japan. As if the world doesn’t need to start working on sustainable development and farming, and careful management of resources. As if we didn’t urgently need to stop using war and violence as problem-solving tools, instead of diplomacy and win-win negotiations. And I read the reasoned argument by Rabbi Lerner this morning, about the Israeli army violently assaulting the flotilla of humanitarian aid in Gaza, and felt that it is sometimes just too much, the way humanity destroys things. I am glad you are still working to bring peace, and to show a more inclusive and cooperative face of Judaism to the world. GOD BLESS YOU! Baruch Hashem!
Dear Abby,
Thank you for this poem — I agree with you about Mother Earth bleeding, wounded.
Synchonistically, someone sent me a message telling of ways to clean an oil spill using non-toxic, oil-eating microorganisms. Apparently their by-products become nutritious food for other creatures, and within a short period the water clears:
Gulf Oil Spill-Gutsy Solution Restores Environment in Just Six Weeks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VfypUzx1tI&feature=youtube_gdata
I hope this is true, and that Mr. Obama will insist on investigating and possibly using it rather than the toxic dispersants BP is now spraying over the water. I have used a similar product in my sink drain (Bio-Clean) for years, and it is both effective AND beats Drano for keeping water safe!
Be well,
Pam
http://www.peacefuldoc.com
Your poem, rightly, covers the reasons I did not turn the TV on all day. Thank you
yah….i can’t watch tv anymore as it depresses me to tears all day.
Many thanks for all of your comments!
I had this thought that came into my head the other day….probably around the same time you wrote this…I said it out loud..”The earth is bleeding”.
I pray for healing…..
Thanks Abby.
so we have a whole fleet of fisherpeople out of work and they have boats and know the water….but why isn’t BP paying them to clean up the oil.
Oh my god,that oil spill will go down in history as the one that ruined the Gulf of Mexico and polluted most of the East Coast beaches as well.