a couple from Jersey leans out over the rail looking down into the brown swill rolling under the weathered boards
The wife remarked “Belmar's water is much nicer.”
on the Gulf’s edge unhappy gulls convene, plaintively gazing over gray waves ebbing at their feet
Brown Pelican crews fly in long ordered formations incessantly circling in widening rounds seemingly reluctant to plunge into the endless depletion of this aquatic dead zone
I speak with a Jefferson Parish employee working a shovel to regrade disturbed sand boasting a consistency of moist drying cement
“How did the Gulf oil spill affect this place?” I ask
“It took evarding.” she said With a slight Cajun accent, “dig down a foot or two in da sand you hit earl. It nevar goes away. Nevar.
“I live down bay side near forty years. Had’nt been in de water fer twenty five. The ****** ******* took evarding. They should go back to Englund”
She went back to tilling the sand.
Deepwater Horizon yet festers a short forty miles out to sea is now covered by an advancing storm swelling in the Gulf
standing at the end of the long pier my hands grasp the sun bleached lumber straining my eyes peering into a dark avalanche
the serenade of bird songs have been replaced by the motorized drone of tenders servicing offshore rigs sounding a constant refrain filling my ears with a disquieting seaside symphony
the taste of light sweet crude dances on my tongue the pungent sting of disbursements climbs into nostrils rends my face prickles my eyes
grandeur is a conditional state never permanent forever temporary
Music Selection: Cajun Music: Hippy To-Yo
Grand Isle 2/20/17 jbm
Grand Isle, Cajun, Deepwater Horizon, ecological distress, Gulf of Mexico