BP Oil Spill:
“The sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours …For this, for everything, we are out of tune.”
Currently in the Gulf of Mexico, the most toxic pollutants known to man are being sprayed to disperse one of the most toxic pollutants known to man; unleashed as a result of man’s fallibility, in a near-global addiction to consumerism – it must be an environmental apocalypse now. One dispersant Corexit 9500, is four times as toxic as oil, and also disrupts the reproductive systems of organisms.
Attempting to capture the images, the lens appeared less than clear, then I realized it was not the lens, but the tears streaming down my face, in response to witnessing overwhelming minutes of beauty beyond imagination. Suddenly, was a certainty of feeling blessed, to understand poet John Gillespie Magee’s words : “…in the sunlit silence, put out my hand, and touched the face of God.” Fifty dolphin have so far, been reported found dead. Experts estimate only one tenth of species which die will be washed up. The full toll of big oil’s “collateral damage”, now, previously and in the future, will likely never be known.
Bird species of the region include albatrosses, petrels, shearwaters, frigatebirds, cormorants, gannets, boobies, gulls, terns and skimmers. With temperatures of one hundred degrees and birds becoming oil covered, experts warn they are boiling, alive. The thick, tarry oil, absorbs the heat.
The many turtle species lay their eggs on or near the beach where they were born. Conservationists are removing eggs to unpolluted shores hundreds of miles away, where hopefully they will survive but another extraordinary natural miracle will have been severed. Four hundred and thirty two turtles have been found dead since April.
The Gulf’s Loggerhead turtle’s hatchlings follow the light of the moon to reach the ocean and swim to safety, away from land’s predators, when they emerge from the egg. For the tiny moon followers, the ocean itself has become their ultimate predator.
I hope to be remembered for my atrocities! 