Mighty Mersey Poem by Sidi Mahtrow
Mighty Mersey
Water is our future
And if protected will secure
A place for all to dwell
If not it will be a living Hell!
But to blame all industries for those few
Who knowing or not, create a deadly stew.
As a chemist who reads of centuries past
I am reminded of man whose lot was cast
In providing the daily sustenance
Short sighted, but of necessity, not by chance.
Mad Hatters who beaver pressed with mercury
Never knowing; they became, soon history.
Or chimney sweeps that developed testicular cancer
From the hydrocarbons in the carbon they did not spurn.
And even now, the sewage that we spew
Contains toxins, quite a few,
Yet the treated waste is spread as reclaimed water
Where man (women and child as well as pets) do wander.
Such it is that Man is truly a dirty animal as some declare
That spoils the land, water and the air.
There is no easy answer for unless Man no longer exist
The problem (or problems) will persist.
Sad to say,
Population explosion will rule the day.
And as man demands more, more, more
The past gives us a hint of what is in store.
Second stanza:
So we see the Mighty Mersey flowing past
Cleansing the land of toxic waste,
And in flowing out to sea
Diminishes the burden on land for you and me.
But water is the element of which we speak
And protecting it is a mission we must all keep.
The Mersey river has a God given task
To cleanse the soil of unwanted trash.
Trash left behind by Nature and Man
The residues of death and life, a it began.
The mighty Mersey sweeps all before it
As it carries the waste, rather than let land store it.
Sweeping the debris along as tides change
Rearranging man's detritus of all that remain.
Excrement for which there are other words
Produced by man; simple or Lords,
Has a preordained fate,
To be converted, as we wait.
Nature can and will provide
The cleansing with each changing tide.
The Mighty Mersey and others of like kind
Serves God (and perhaps mankind.)
It's not industry that is at fault
But Man's demand for all that industry wrought.
s
Otters return to the Mersey
The mighty Mersey darkened at Hale Head
rolled its sand and mud to lay another bed
of smoothed drying curves in softened light
and once by day and once by every night
sucked the poison from the plant along the banks
caustic, mercury spewed from storage tanks
from Runcorn's secret place seeped mustard gas
to prosper or to kill a different class
layered fretted banks still draw the eye
to an anguished river's every twist to try
to cast the toxic metals from its silt
and none who did it show a trace of guilt
lauded now for cleaning up their act
for otters have left a signature in tracks
which otter-speaking industrialists can claim
means nature has absolved them of all blame
Barney Rooney(4/11/2012 8: 50: 00 AM)
Who shall have the last word?
Not me said the river with modesty
my bed is a mere scratch in the earth
rain and tides will come and go
I am merely the channel
not the master of their flow
straighten me in concrete banks
dam my tumbling stream
siphon off my water
to cool or cleanse your schemes
and irrespective of the ages
I have gouged or smoothed a course
my capricious nature must concede
to those who tame my force
but my use, beauty, majesty
my place in nature's way
worthless worthless worthless
when the commodity men come play?
Barney Rooney(4/9/2012 4: 13: 00 AM)
so Sidi, for 200 years the river earned its Nature's keep
poisoned every living thing from shallows to the deep
children played along its banks of sand
returning home with burned and blistered hands
and Men who owned the land along its banks
found fortune and may have duly given thanks
to their god
but though their titles suggested they were grand
these simple Lords were never grand as MAN
and demand for the product of their spoil
came not from those who had to toil
to live - with family to house and feed
to stoke the engines run for power and greed
NATURE may conveniently explain the bigger plan
and absorb within itself the acts of MAN
when reflecting on the interplay of greater force
but not so helpful to predict the river's run
when Men corrupt the nature of its course.
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5/20/2024 12:43:04 AM # 1.0.0.1119
