Mourning

Mourning

What's most disturbing is the relentless pouring of sewage
into the ocean via the Ala Wai Canal because of flooding and
faulty pipes. When I flew in a few days ago and we dipped toward
the city before landing, the Ala Wai and the boat harbor there
were brown with sewage. I wanted to go swimming when I got back.
Can't.

We are witnessing the end of an age. We must make note of it,
write and sing about it so people remember, so that this ongoing
disrespect of the earth, the creatures, plants, stars, planets,
all life does not happen again.

I am in mourning.
Our freedoms are dying.
Our privacy is taking its last breaths.
Our so-called leaders smell rankly of greed.
And I realized a few months ago, as I drank fresh spring water
as it erupted between stones outside of Anchorage,Alaska
that my grandchildren have never tasted water that hasn't been
contaminated with floride, plastic or some other chemical.

Tonight I am mourning the Pacific that has blessed these islands.
Tons of raw sewage from tourist-laden Waikiki has spewed
into the ocean, and now the currents have deposited it back
on the most beautiful stretch of beachfront in the world.
How's that for "poetic justice"?


Joy Harjo February 2006