Rest in peace, O Gulf of Mexico…

 I’ve been trying to stay ignorant of the BP oil spill, not out of lack if concern or interest, but because it infuriates me and I can’t handle the increase in my blood pressure.

I’m failing at it. 

I wish there was something I could do. Boycott BP? Sure, great idea, but how many little mom-and-pop gas stations does that hurt, how many jobs lost because the revenue isn’t coming into these little places to keep their staff? I happen to like the girls who work at my local BP station(but my favorite is Kwik Trip. Best. Coffee. Ever.). I don’t want them to lose their jobs because the chain that their store is partnered with is made of epic fail.

I can’t afford to leave my job and go wash sea turtles. I don’t have any money to donate. So I avoid the news articles and the live feeds and the radio programs. I don’t want to know because I hate the sick feeling I get in the pit of my stomach knowing that we’ve destroyed an entire ecosystem and poisoned millions of living creatures. I hate knowing that there isn’t anything I can do about it.

Go read [link]

Yuumei’s got a pretty kewl contest going on right now. If I could draw worth a damn, I’d enter. Then maybe I’d feel like I was doing something.

Rest in peace, O Gulf of Mexico. I will miss fishing on your shorelines and tanning on your beaches. I will miss the little schools of stingrays that used to tickle my toes as I stood on the sandbars. I will miss crabs and starfish and coral and turtles and…. and….. and….

I will miss you.

-Rebecca

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This is a poem by James Cavanaugh, which I read and memorized many moons ago. I hope I remember it accurately.

Come to the beach with me 
and watch the pelicans die.
Listen to their feeble screams
calling to an empty sky
where once they played and scouted for food
not scavenging like the gulls
but plummeting unafraid into friendly waters.

Come to the beach with me
and watch the pelicans die.
Listen to their feeble screams 
calling to an empty sky.
Maybe Christ will walk by and save them from their final toil
or work a miracle from the shore
a courtesy of Union Oil.

Come to the beach with me 
and watch the pelicans die.
My God, they’ll never fly again.
It’s worse than Normandy somehow
for there we only murdered men.