BP Escape Boat [Today's News Poem, June 19, 2010]
We worship the sun and the water as sources
Of life—and they're true to their purpose: refreshing
The lungs that have carried an ozone from office
To races, where fiberglass timbers are chipping
The teeth of the current. The ritual sailors,
Those actor-explorers are winding the island,
Enacting the glories of promising eras
That vanished—depleted with passage. They're chasing
Horizons in search of a past that is littered
With folly. While under the surface, the present
Is leaking and follows the vessel; which dashes
On moats made of petrol, from castles of ashes.
“BP officials on Saturday scrambled yet again to respond to another public relations challenge when their embattled chief executive, Tony Hayward, spent the day off the coast of England watching his yacht compete in one of the world’s largest races.”
– Liz Robbins, The New York Times, June 19, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/us/20spill.html?hp
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