Poetic License: The Walrus in the Gulf
BP was drilling in the Gulf
Drilling with all its might:
It did its very worst to make
Its profits big and bright —
This was not odd, because they thought
It was their corporate right.
The Greens were pouting sulkily
Because they thought BP
Had got no business to be there
In such a fragile sea —
“It’s dangerous,” they said,
To wildlife, you and me.”
The Gulf was blue as blue could be
Its beaches white as white,
And suddenly there rose black clouds
To turn the day to night —
Weighed down by toxic spill
There were no birds in flight.
The Walrus on the Gulf beach
Had no one to hold his hand.
He wept like anything to see
Tar balls on the sand.
“If this were only cleared away,”
He said, “It would be grand.”
“If guest-worker maids with imported mops
Swept them for half a year
Do you suppose” the Walrus asked,
“That they could get them clear?”
“I doubt it,” said BP’s Hayward,
“What are you doing here?”
“This time I’ve come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things,
Of skimmers, shrimp and pelicans
With crude oil on their wings,
And why the Gulf still boiling hot,
Each day disaster brings.”
“You swore I’d be protected
From environmental fears,
Though I haven’t fished these waters
For at least three million years.
You owe me at least some oysters
And non-alcoholic beers.”
“Your BP spill’s the worst disaster
Ever known to God or Man,
And worse, you have included me
In your false protection plan,
Without a word or warning
Before the spill began.”
“I’ll be swimming back to Alaska
Where thank God, it’s ten below,
Hauling out with my old harem
On a brand new icy floe,
The only walrus who’s ever swum
In the Gulf of Mexico.”