NOTE BENE Poem by peter cooley

I won't try here to allegorize
out of the present pool of thick, black oil
which every day now widens in the gulf.

I'm out here at the rims of my edges,
circling around, trying to find my names,
a place to stand, where I can take this in.

Louisiana. The word's beautiful,
the coastline and the marshes you can watch
as you descend or ascend in your plane.
But when I try to understand such loss
as no one yet admits, I'm staggering.
I snap off the TV. on this image:
the first dead pelican slickered with black
sliding into a body bag like those
the US keeps in Washington for this,
for Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq.

The art history professor told our class—
this was during the invasion of Laos—
the pelican is a symbol of Christ.
Remember. I do not allegorize.
My purpose is to note—and then to sing.