Cleanup

Cleanup

Clorox bottle stuck in a tree

twenty feet above the waterline.

Come on in.  The water’s fine

as long as you don’t mind the shit and the pee

streaming from the straightpipes.

What keeps me up late nights,

though, is the knowledge that I drink this stuff.

Even with a filter,

this is out of kilter!

What’s even worse than that is the slough

from the mining runoff.

This is no one-off.

It pours into our water supply every day.

Heavy metals.

Regulator settles

for a pittance, considering the way

we have to swallow

what flows into our hollow.

Seems like it’s the case that the trash in the river

is the least of our worries.

EPA’s in no hurry.

They make their promise, but they rarely deliver.

Government’s been bought.

Don’t do what they ought

to.  And we all just accept that’s the way it is.

Well, maybe not all of us.

Some fools say, “Follow us

down to the river for a daytrip

cleanup.”  And other fools get arrested

trying to get the water tested.

And even other fools line up in front of the Whitehouse,

zipties on their hands,

calling out, “Clean up our land!”

You know, maybe those fools are a lighthouse,

revealing the danger,

trying to arrange our

response to mind-numbing irresponsibility.

Will it work?

Regardless, I can’t shirk

my duty to try with all my ability.

Pick up that trash.

Make a splash

in the halls of the powerful by pestering

them.  Call attention

to their pretension.

If we don’t do something, this will just keep on festering.