COFFMAN: A Fracker’s Mother Speaks

[Oscar]

A Fracker’s Mother Speaks

by Steve Coffman

Billy’s gang was just at that age, all
angles and elbows, if it wasn’t down
some hole pocketing frogs or fool’s gold
it was climbing trees or gas rigs, blastin’
bottle rockets to the sky

Then came that funny period I used to call
their disgustin’ arts stage, like who could make
most god-awfulest noise, wear ickiest shirt
leave biggest mess in the yard, light up
blat off wickedest smelliest fart

Boys staying boys, I reckon, that’s the
long an’ short of it, forever fussin’ an’
wranglin’ over who’s got the fattest
wad of folded money, hottest honey
biggest baddest rod

But what they’re up to now with this
frackin’ business, God help us---that’s no
joke! Anymore it ain’t just drunk peein’
in the sink, scarfin’ down last three
pieces of pumpkin’ pie

Messin’ with Mother Nature herself, this is!
Ain’t just the doin but the scale that scares
hell outa me, like puttin’ a whale in the fish pond
changin’ oil of a truck fleet in the front yard
without a pan, not two foot from the well---

Plus puttin’ all them chemicals you can’t
pronounce in the air, on the roads, not by the
poison ounce, but by the millions of gallons
and pounds, even more just left a-fizzin’ an’
a-swirlin’ in her deepest secret parts

No use cryin’ over spilt milk they groan, but
all this ethyl-methyl-hexyl-crapanol bubbling up
God knows where, that’s gotta be worth a few
sticky tears from someone, I’ll own, don’t need
no doctor to tell us we can’t breathe soot

And we can’t drink gas! These “Where to Dump It”
games of yours ain’t just kick the canister down
the road or formaldehyde an’ seek; this be truckloads
of poison headin’ down from creek to lake to ocean
to sky! Time t’ yell up Whoa, you boys!

For us mothers t’ grab back those reins, take back
our sons, I’m sayin’, lay down that law again! Never you
mind how cocky an’ clever they be with their “you ain’t
down there---can’t prove what you can’t see!” We know how
fast they talk when they don’t want us knowin’ this from that

Listen up, Billy! Time you boys come of age. We busted a gut
t’ lay you a right foundation an’ don’t regret a single stage you
wobbled through, long as now you take the bit an’speak the truth
you know---that every pipeline leaks, every flare pollutes the air
an’ no cement job lasts forever.

- Steve Coffman,
Dundee, New York

July 26, 2013