Pelican Dreams

I will include a few links to photos of the kind of scene that inspired this poem.
Once again my words were not powerful enough to express my thoughts. At times like these I doubt my ability ever to make it as a poet or think of myself as one.
http://www.nwf.org/News-and-Magazines/National-Wildlife/Birds/Archives/2010/~...

http://www.shepherdpress.com/blog/pelican-oil1.jpg

Old grey mariner marooned
On the margin of a nightmare tide
Exhausted, you flap your wings in vain
As oil soaked feathers leave you grounded
Here, on this black polluted shore
Under an unforgiving sun.

You close your eyes
And dream of clear blue water
Remember the warm offshore winds
Blowing from Mobile
That cradled you, held you aloft
As you sailed over shimmering seas.

Remember the crazy dives
Your wings furled, plummeting down
To plunge into a cool green world
Where shoals of silver fishes swerved
Too late, in vain
To escape your grasping beak.




The caustic crude burns your skin
You blink unknowingly at distant derricks
Where men toil to drill for oil
Driven by need
Driven by greed
They delve too deep
Without care, without consideration.

Your body quakes
The reek of crude fills your lungs
You remember mad, salt spray days
When easterly gales
Whipped the bay into maelstrom
Churning white horses
That galloped towards the distant dunes
...Once more, you mount a cresting wave
The wind catches outstretched wings
Hurls you skyward
Now you are free.

The camera crew and oilman walk the beach
The oilman says, "He wants his life back"
Nearby, a boy in orange overalls
Bearing the logo "community service"
(Some minor misdemeanour)
Picks up a dead pelican
And places it gently in a plastic bag
Marked "contaminated waste."

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Peter
• Litton
• Poem
• Poetry
• Pelican
• Oil
• spill

[PassionateMistress]

Wow, the last verse was so powerful.

[flan984]

Ok...this might have been hard to write, but the final result paid off. I found this poem a great portrait of a huge tragedy. I found the images it brought to my mind just moving. That exhausted pelican stuck in oil is just the right icon for that tragedy, that sin. Men's folly and indifference, destroying all that is beautiful and free. And on that last moving stanza you went even further and managed to work in the social consequences of the spill. Very well done this, I think.

[peebzzz]

This was a good topic for you to take on =] It was an epic disaster that has caused so much damage to our world, yet nobody seems to really care. Like you said in the final stanza, all those lost lives are just seen as waste somebody has to pick up whilst wishing they could be out enjoying their own lives. It's unfair. Nice work Peter, I feel a bit inspired =]

[PoetLina]

Love this poem, especially the last stanza, linking the boy, who, whilst being "punished" for falling short of society's "expectations" treats the "contaminated waste" of a bird with compassion. Brilliant!

[DavidRandallCurtis]

You are a poet. That is a given.  Great work. Faved. :)

[Idlinfarm]

I think of you as a poet, Peter, but no one else tells you that you are a poet. You say to yourself 'I am a poet.' That's how I see it. The gulf tragedy is overwhelming. The worst man-made environmental crisis ever. I salute you for taking it on.

[heatherlynblue]

absolutely heartbreaking.