Bluebeard Petroleum

Arenal on Flickr – Photo Sharing!

January 2002

In the day’s last light I watch a birthing,
life delivered in tremors, groans, contractions.
Molten streams spilled down obsidian thighs.
Steam plumes blanketed the harbor basin,
fingers curling up to catch new life in cupped hands.
Mother earth giving birth to herself.

April 2010

Night over the gulf delivers a fireball, explosion, tremors —
this basin a cradle for death.
A black plume rises, jetting thick and fast as a severed artery,
the fountain of our shame.
Appointed caretakers wring their hands and bicker
like siblings trying to pass off responsibility for a senile parent.
Will our minds prove nimble enough to save us from our ingenuity?

June 2010

In flickering light, on monitors around the world,
cameras deliver live feed.
Our dark side wells up,
as unstaunchable as Bluebeard’s key,
a spreading stain that can’t be covered with lies,
or washed clean in the spin cycle —
mother earth bleeding out.

Oiled Bird on Flickr – Photo Sharing!

Forgive us Mother, we know not what we do.

Nara Malone 2010

This was written in response to this week’s Carry On Tuesday prompt. See what other participants wrote here.