When we to home on the westside returned
from an excursion to the north Cascades
We found the remains of the burn
The ashes that floated from West Bay.
All over our little back yard
The charcoal remnants had fallen
We gathered up pieces, wondered what these were
How could anything cover us all?
The source of the fire was a mystery
We heard another factory had burned
The industries have a long history
of leaving ruins, when will we learn?
The native peoples once had subsisted
for millennia on this fragile shore
The tides set the table with seafood
They never asked for anything more
After decades of dredging and shipping
filling, dumping, oil tanks and more
some neighbors took to helping the herons
survive in the woods by the shore
For everything built for pure profit
is soon to be all washed away
and fly up in the sky, an anthropocene cry
like the ashes that float up from West Bay
—Tom Nogler
Be First to Comment