Poem: Extrapolation of the Facts

By Lee Linus Jing Wo, Cornell undergraduate

The oil companies denied it, of course.

Dressing up their statements in pretty little frocks

carefully knitted lies of blame

dancing darkened digressions around the truth

they took their leave. Left trails of smoke

shining green stars past the clouds of sulfur

carrying only those who could afford to be saved

leaving us. We, the people.

To clean up the impossible mess

the maelstrom of plastic

the gaping hole in our roof.

“Maybe we should have paid more attention to what was happening,”

one placid politician, swaddled in steel, announces

for nobody in particular to hear.

“Maybe we should have recycled a little more.”

_____________________

Gagging ourselves in plastic bags

we struggle through sandstorm-struck cities

Plagued crows stir in the vengeful heat.

One perches on a ripened corpse. 

Pecking at an eclipsed socket it caws.

Pleading with Mother Earth to return us

to her once-blessed bosom. She answers

not. For her mouth has turned to sand

and her once crystal eyes weep pungent sulfur,

and her once melodious voice wails

pitifully and never again. The tar in her throat has hardened.

She beckons, gurgling, a wretched thing now, curled upon a nest

of cracked brick and yearning sickly yellow moss.

You lean down. She gently places her final gift-

a wreath of rotted wood upon your head.

Grieving for the rhinos (Javan, Black, Sumatran)

and the porpoises

and the elk

and the wood ducks

and the bees

led by the oily hand of the truth-manglers

We stumble towards our own open grave.

Thanks to Lee for giving us permission to reprint this poem!