The Oil is Death
Texarkana, Arkansas
2016, Junior, Poetry & Spoken Word
Thick, black oil bubbled up from the depths of the blue sea. Something
had gone wrong with the old, rusted piping. The cloud billowed up to the
surface, creating an oily sheet on the water, impossible for sunlight to
penetrate. The oil is not considerate.
The soundless current carried the oil farther and farther away. The cloud
was growing, and growing fast. It spread a film once clear water, blotting
out the precious sunlight. The oil can not rest.
The gunk spread closer and closer to the beaches. It smothered the
seaplants and choked the life out of the animate creatures. It reached the
corals, and seeped through to their tough but sensitive insides. The oil has
no mercy.
The Sunfish swam slowly along, near the surface. He spied something odd
in the distance, something black and casting a shadow. “This cannot be
real,” he thought to himself. “What are you?” he called to the black cloud.
It only floated in silence. The oil does not respond.
The Sunfish swam closer, unaware of the danger ahead. How could he
know when there had been none to warn him? “I asked, ‘What are you?’,“
the Sunfish repeated, only to be met with more silence. “Why will you
not speak?” The oil has no voice.
Still, the Sunfish swam even closer, despite obvious danger. The oil slowly
reached out its sticky tentacles, wrapping around our poor Sunfish. The
smog flooded through his gills, clogging them up. The oil will not spare.
“Stop that!” the Sunfish cried. “It is hurting me!” He turned around, fast as
he could, only to be met by more blackness. Soon he saw no more, and his
gills would never open again. The oil only kills.
The cloud drifted on, carrying the Sunfish as a prize. His once gray,
leathery skin was no slick with oil. The ocean cried for her Sunfish and the
other lives the oil had taken, all who would never move again. The oil is
death.
Reflection
Reflection
The Ocean Sunfish is my favorite fish. It swims generally alone in the open ocean, where manmade oil drilling facilities tend to be located. When the valves in the piping stop working or there is a leak, the whole world erupts in panic. The Ocean Sunfish, along with many other beautiful animals, are exposed to this tragedy. The Ocean Sunfish is the largest bony fish in the world, and one of the fastest depleting in numbers. If we could somehow prevent oil spills from happening so frequently, the Sunfish and other animals would have a chance to get back on their feet (not literally). Oil spills are a problem all too frequent in our world. Of course the oil drilling industry is a big source of income for many people, but it should not come at the expense of the habitat, lives, and overall health of the creatures of the oceans. Unlike most people I see, I understand that it is very expensive and time consuming to regulate the many oil rigs, and rather difficult to know exactly what must be done. When you hear about oil spills in general, you most often hear things such as: "They should be more careful!" or "Drilling for oil is bad!". However, drilling for oil is not inherently bad. It is when the rigging breaks and the oil leaks out into the clean water that it becomes a problem. When will we start hearing things like, "Oil spills are bad. We should all be more careful" or "What can we do as a nation to help prevent these?" I personally do not think drilling for oil is a bad idea, like my poem may have suggested. Itwas not my intention to seem totally against oil drilling. My goal was to show how I though ocean animals may feel (in a sort of overly personified way) when the oil leaks out into their home. In today's society, oil has become almost necessary for enjoyable human life. Weneed it to run all our machines that in turn allow us to do things like drive or cook food. Ifit is there, humans will drill for it until it is all gone. There is basically nothing we can do tostop it completely, someone will always be doing it. Instead of lowering the number of active oil drilling facilities, like many people suggest, we should focus more on how we can make the existing and future ones safer for the environment. Perhaps we could: D more research on tighter piping and valves, experiment with different and stronger materials, do maintenance checks and replace parts more often, or not strip the ground of oil as quickly. In a poem every word the author writes is intentional, just like the life of every living thing on the planet is intentional.