Deep Waters: A Black Rain Rises

Back into Deep Waters, as we approach the end of our series of posts in which writers respond to this summer's Deepwater Horizon disaster. Tomorrow, we return to where we started, at ground level, where sea, oil and land meet, with another report from Benjamin Morris. Before that, the final poem in this series comes from J E Roberts.
is a writer and artist based in the Welsh border country. His book, Two Lights - Walking in Landscapes of Loss and Life, will be published in March 2023 by September Publishing.

1.

Dolphins hunt in the blue light
running the sea tracks,
click chant spears
hurl, return.
Silver glint of the fleeing shoal
as the pod fans

A cow follows
with shadowing calf.
The pod is fading,
call chants return unclear.
A stain overhead.
She stalls,
feels a cold reach,
but the sea bond drives her,
she pushes her calf
towards the dark

They dive and surface,
breathe the strengthening fume,
weave the empty troughs.
Eyes stinging,
they watch for the pod
as fish prey drifts and spins
like falling feathers
and a black rain rises.

 

2.

A boat slides from the beach.
Masked figures stare down
at the slow creases
of an unreflecting sea.
Gloved hands reach,
pull at wings and fins,
haul nightmare creatures
from the slick.
Out near the rocks
two smooth forms,
the size of a woman and child,
float, still, in the slack.

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