OKLAHOMA, 2017

In early March, hundreds of square miles
in Oklahoma are burning. ‘Never
seen anything like it’˛ says one official.
Last year’s rains produced a bumper grass crop
now tinder in this year’s drought. Oklahoma,
home state of Trump’s EPA head, Scott Pruitt,
climate change denier, brazenly
beholden to fossil fuel interests.
Roll back protections of air and water
and get out of the way of big oil and coal!
Forget the hardness of Flint, the hatefulness
of Love Canal. Put gag orders on scientists,
scrub inconvenient language from websites.
One coordinated attack after another
on the wellsprings of public health and the planet’s.
We understand short-term plunder for the rich,
but what’s in it for the rest? These tear-downs
must be defiant validation for
those who hate others more than they love
themselves, sufficient to satisfy them
that their will is being done as they’re prodded
down the chute to the loading cattle truck.

 

Thomas R. Smith


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