Oil Monster

A friend on twitter linked to a site that allows you to understand the relative size of the oil spill by placing it over your home town. The shadows remind me of catechism classes when I was young, and how the nuns taught us that we were born with a black smudge on our souls. I always thought of my soul at a gray ghost, stained with spirals of thumbprint ink. If my body disappeared, all anyone would be able to see was the thumbprint.

Now it seems like the oil is a giant stain on our environmental souls. The earth is our collective body. We’re all so many cilia waving on its surface. If the earth were to disappear, all we’d have left is this shadow, a blob with a desire to devour. Is this  monster a true reflection of the human psyche as we are today?

Published by Christine

Christine Swint’s poems have appeared in Calyx, Birmingham Poetry Review, Slant, a Journal of Poetry, Tampa Review, Heron Tree, Ekphrasis, and others. Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best New Poets, and she has won first place prizes from the Georgia Poetry Society and Agnes Scott College. Her first collection, Swimming This, was published in 2015 by FutureCycle Press. She teaches first-year composition at a metro-Atlanta university and writes about poetry, art, hiking, and yoga at Balanced on the Edge, https://balancedonedge.blog Twitter @christine_swint

7 thoughts on “Oil Monster”

  1. Bob Wood says:
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    The nun in first communion class drew a bottle on the board and chalked it in. That was sin. Then she erased it. That was confession. The residue on the board was what had to be erased in Purgatory. Fortunately, by virtue of a wet sponge I’m now sin free and heaven bound.

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  3. christine says:
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    Bob, those nuns! They didn’t know what they were dealing with when they had you in class. Your wit would enlighten anyone.

    I know, Dale. It’s hard to look at pictures of the animals all covered in oil, or see the fishermen in despair.

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    • christine says:
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      I know, Michelle. I read that animals have been seen in extreme distress, swimming away from the spill. And humans too, the poor fishermen, the oil workers who were killed…

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  5. naquillity says:
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    this is definitely the worst oil spill ever. and no sight of this ending anytime soon. those animals suffering and the fisherman out of jobs is almost to much to take. that drawing over the spill looks like a whale’s tale (flipper) to me.

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  6. Julie says:
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    Thank you for the link to the site, Christine. I will pass it along to others. I think the visual is a great tool for helping people to understand the massive nature of the spill. If it were on my home town, it would literally cover two thirds of the Carolina coast.

    Your question is right on. Is this monster a reflection of our human psyche as we are today? I was just raging about a commercial I saw at my friend’s house. It was for dish washing liquid and showed images of birds covered in oil. Supposedly, their wonder product cleans the animals. They are quickly jumping on the bandwagon to make money from death, destruction and misery. I’ll have to look it up to see the brand again. I was yelling too hard and can’t remember. If I buy anything from them, I never will again.

    But then the anger melts to sadness. Every day, I wake up and hope it has been contained. Every day, it looks worse for the environment and people of the Gulf coast.

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