Onion Cap

two old men stand and wave their arms and hands in a gentle mid-west kata

what they’ve seen and wanted

whom they both might know

all the change and who has passed

and who’d had that surgery

old friends the other didn’t know

time they spent like nickels and dimes

many loads a day

of egg crates and bottled milk

all the fish they caught

the day OSHA came to the shop and shut them down

for lifting thirty-seven pounds or more above your head

ten years of work and now it stops

and do you know Mueller down by the dam?

my house is there behind the tress, so many tress

some herbal thing she’s drinking to lose wieght

it’s funny who you run into and who you know

in Rapid City, South Dakota, a pretty slow place

I heard they had some good wheat years

she works for my cousin

I drove truck for thirty-five years

but she didn’t really advertise

I haul to the cities

she’s got a couple guys who spread the word

The oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico is turning out to be one of the events of the century.  Maybe of the millenia.

The Blob will likely engulf the Gulf as it swirls and expands into the largest oil slick ever, catches the Gulf Stream, coats the Florida coast, and smears it’s way right up the eastern seaboard.  This oil spill is rapidly becoming an unprecedented disaster:  The Oil Spill of 2010.  Spew Orleans.

Already we hear reports of anger at the oil company and at the government for failing to make sure it didn’t happen, for not acting fast enough, and for not fixing it already.  As it drags on, the anger will solidify into a story of who should and must be held accountable for this mess.  A price must be paid.  It will change the political calculus of the 2010 election.  So much for “Drill, baby, drill.”  And who will Pat Robertson blame for this?

All the while we retain our right to a tank of gas.  How common and expected it has become to stop at the gas station, fill the tank, buy a bottle of milk, and maybe even have a chat with the neighbors.  The routines of many millions of lives include a stop at the local filling station.  We don’t question it.  It’s almost impossible to imagine life without a car or a 4 wheel drive truck.  As for the gas, we don’t want anyone to tax it, we don’t want to pay a higher price, and we most certainly feel entitled to have our gas available whenever we need it just about anywhere we go.

As we watch the slick spread to fill the Gulf from the satellite view, it’s not at all hard to see the reflection of everyone responsible right there in the sheen of oil, events following our collective actions with the inexorable logic of cause and effect.