The Ocean’s Lament
Image by Jenny Dodge
Let us return to the beginning, O Great Ocean
You have endured as much suffering
As a mother whose wayward offspring
Walk in disobedience, heads held high
You call in a voice carried as far as the winds
But no one hears your distress
Or witnesses the toxic tears
Prompted by the ships’ forever lingering crude oil
“My children, someone please help my dying children!”
You weep and gnash your teeth, writhing in agony
At the hideous spectacle of suffocating fish
Withering plants, and the overgrowth of algae
You fear that these dead zones will soon
Be the fate of your whole body
Let us return to the beginning, O Great Ocean
When your supply of oxygen, now lowered by sewage
Was sustainable for the creatures that resided within you
Before you were beset by fevers that cost the lives of your marine animals
Before villainous fiends
Crept into your vast beauty,
And degraded your reputation, forever injured
Debris clings to your hair
Now matted and tangled
Plastic, like a virus, never decomposes, but remains in your system
Lives offered up to preserve your majesty
These heroes are harassed by the vicious litter
Some bravely consume the plastic
And no one honors their valor by caring to prevent those sacrificial acts
Let us return to the beginning, O Great Ocean
To the goddess that you were
Assuredly, you deserve better than this
To be clothed in rays of sunlight,
Worshipped for the abundance of pleasures you hold
Instead, plants of the sea
Can no longer receive their daily doses of nutrients
Photosynthesis, halted
Naive birds
With heavy feathers
Sharks innocently beg to breathe
Humans, destructive progeny that we are,
greedily mine for copper and gold,
Purity for the taking
Let us return to the beginning, O Great Ocean
Before your illness stretched across the world
Runoff from rains,
unknowingly traveled to the other parts of your body
Litter, that had misplaced its compass
Freely meandered
farther than you wished it to
Your smaller children,
foolishly stuck chemicals in their mouths
And as the food chain goes,
were eaten by predators
that were bigger than they
Humans killed those diseased beings of the sea for food
And fell ill themselves
Let us return to the beginning, O Great Ocean
You cradle God’s tears
Holiness tainted by your unclean temple
Which is by no fault of your own
As a helpful daughter, I pick the specks of litter
That have made their way into your bounding main
Because I have not turned a blind eye
To your unusually dark depths
With oil bubbles floating at the top
To the pictures of sea lions being strangled by plastic lassos
Large black eyes wistfully questioning humanity’s intentions
Or to the unfamiliar, burning that persists in my throat
After accidentally drinking your toxic waters
While going for a swim
Let us return to the beginning, O Great Ocean
When you did not need the assistance of the EPA
Subjecting you to testing
With results that turned up in vain
Because blindfolds
were wound too tightly
I must remind you, O Powerful Sea
Not all of us will stand by
as observers at an unfair boxing match
Some, like myself, were just born too late
The damage was already done
However, my covenant to you
is to ferociously avert further harm inflicted upon you
Let me help you return to the beginning O, Great Ocean
