My Back Yard; Louisiana’s Gulf Coast
Aug 02
My Back Yard. Louisiana’s Gulf Coast.
For the Gulf
By Christine Maynard
My back yard
was rich and fresh.
Fecund fields
water lands.
Wet. Lands.
Shrimp flew
through Gulf air.
Schools of fish made
water quiver
in bright light
Clean
Abundant
Life seamless
LEE
key
Quay
Pungent oysters
Bay
and breeze
sea grass billowing
Cypress knees
Alligators are birds
making nests, really
Snakes and birds
bald eagles
Nutria
otter beaver
bigger gators
eat the
small ones.
Cannibalism
Tennessee Williams
Mosquito Coast
New Orleans ninth
and culpable the
Corp in trouble
Again.
We called it
The Corp when
the trouble began.
Martin Luther
where’s our letter
from the Birmingham jail
freeing us up
from a sentence
self induced.
My bad.
Flotsam loose
trapped in oil
Big thick oil
tarnished like rust
shit and shinola
oxblood dampening
the specific gravity
is specifically
grave
No body bags for this one
Dead zone
increasing exponentially
like zombies
in a b movie
Minerals board
like revelers
on Bourbon Street
WE lost our
class when men
stopped wearing hats
the old guard say.
The Cotton Exchange
judges and lawyers with camps
in Covington say.
With box cars Priests bless
for Sunday Mass
in our forests,
along our bayous
a history
and pageantry
unparalleled
Sportsmans Paradise
on life support
While we play button button
And headline news
rescues kittens
Our Gulf Coast
of crabs and lemon fish
drum and redfish
dolphins play around
oil rigs
before their 9/11.
First clean bird freed
by Wildlife and Fisheries.
Yachts and sailing
Resorts and coast line
Shimmering rich
now sullen.
Thick
Not unctuous
Dead sludge smothering
not even,
too clean
thick mausoleums
of perpetual slime
mortuaries for
species that
sparkled
I’m saddened
it came to this.
Our watery apocalypse
blood flowing
from a corpse.
Christine Maynard
(Previously promoted saving species by saving habitat, for Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries)
awesome writing…
Heart felt. And now leaks in Barataria. I love our Gulf. I love Mother Earth, my Momma! Rectification regardless of atonement is at hand.
I saw people eyeing the shrimp at a local grocery store today. Baton Rouge. Arms crossed, chins down, distancing themselves from the counter. Wanting it, but knowing better.
Save our Gulf and listen up One World Order-ers!! Stop poisoning our waters, our lands, our minds. Tighten up people. It isn’t just those you previously perceived as lame hippies (aka 2012 ers) saying “save our natural resources.” The future is here.
First time through I got the words. Third time I got the emotion; grief, despair, sadness. Momentary glimmers of remembered joi de vivre, buried by the now. You captured what we feel. Thanks.
Three’s a charm, Chris! Thanks for seeing it and thank you for all of your inspiration, tree climbing and steadfastness. You are amazing!