Summer seeps back into focus once again, and Juno
spends the moonless nights bending back into spilt-
oil images of sleep, lulled slick in a gulf cradle. She
dreams of tar babies, dredged from the deep, sucking
thumbs and fingers that spread oceanwide with the tide.
Each cry is sunken to a slumber, whilst someone shuffles
and mumbles excuses about fishbones caught in throats
and how no-one knew nightmares could float on water.
Only with heels congealed together could the tar children
translate the runes of an ocean beaten back into the ruins
of its own past, or understand how casting hydrocarbon-cut
ruts in the sea floor has scarred the shore. And only Juno,
hand-on-heart-on-sleeve (-Queen of kerosene, the god-breathed
babies and every marine casualty that slept too soon-) can realise
why the insides of the earth were uprooted in the pursuit
of persistently plastic things.
.
* * *
I've been meaning to write about the gulf oil disaster for ages, but it has taken me a while to think of the right words to use to write it with both shame and respect. Unfortunately, I don't think writing about this can ever be too late to be relevant.
Juno was the queen of the Roman gods, protector and special counsellor of the state. One of her titles was 'she who brings children into the light'.
More mythology poems:
.diana
.ceres
.vesta
.venus
.minerva
You manage to write about the disaster in such a fresh and unsentimental way. You've definitely achieved what you set out to do.
ReplyDeleteI love the imagery of the dreaming about tar babies. It's disturbing but somehow it has a lullaby-quality.
Amazing! xxx
Hooray! I like to hear that I've hit the mark with what I intended to do - I find it so hard to read my work from anything other than a personal perspective.
ReplyDeleteThank you muchly dear <3 xxx