slick

At the same time as I spend a long and lovely Saturday by the shore of the lake I love, other shores are being swamped with oil. How? How can this be?

I went to pick up the newspaper at a leisurely 5:30 PM (as opposed to the usual 6:30 am), pulling the rolled and bent newsprint from the red box. I unfolded it and started walking back up the driveway. I read: "'Colossal tragedy' foreseen as oil gushes ashore." A picture of two workers in blue scrubs tenderly holding a bird and holding a cloth to it. The caption: "Doctors try to wipe oil off a northern gannet in Fort Jackson, La., Friday."

All day, sitting by the lake, reading my book, I've casually watched geese, seagulls, crows, eagles, riding the invisible air. The clear, unblemished water slaps against the rocks, providing backdrop to my reading. Being by the water brings me peace, makes me calm. A muskrat swam by, looking like a stick floating on the current, except for the wake he was leaving behind him.

I read about this disaster and I want to cry. The word "disaster" means nothing to us anymore. We hear it on the news so much, it just means "happening". When it should really mean - cry your eyes out, because shit is hitting a fan. Someone's world is collapsing. Has broken apart, has become infested with black oil droplets. Is nothing like it was, and may never be again.

My heart is breaking and I don't know what to do about it. I want to wipe every northern gannet clean, set them free into the air, watch them fly away above a clear ocean. I don't even know where I would start.