A recent poem, "If Then What," is part of the mass of poems (I like to think of them as stones in a sort of digital cairn) that make up Poets for Living Waters. Curated by Amy King and Heidi Lynn Staples, the project is an online "poetic action" in response to the rupture of oil in the Gulf of Mexico this past spring—though it also speaks to the circulations of water closer to home (wherever you live) that pass through your watershed, your backyard, your cellular membranes.
You can find it in their collection under "W" in the Open Mic section—good luck finding it—or just read on below (but be sure to check out some of the fantastic poems they have posted).
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If Then What
The sun’s reflection smears like an oil spill,
lost in sea or air, who knows.
The sun and then the moon are altars
of light and stone.
A voice in the alley said to speak
the names of the creeks:
sewage, soda, ocean spray.
Move into the flow, it said,
press salt upon your forehead,
upon your wounds in the surf.
What if we uncovered the waterways
beneath highways, watersheds in our nuclei,
if we used our new names to remember the old,
or became the taste of iron?
If the images have sunk beyond recovery,
what new waves will remember the history
of ferns and dinos?
We can sing and drive
home facts and morals,
from delta to Dakotas.
Mississippi and Great Lakes
will part our greasy hair.
