Clearwater - Jason O'Toole

Indian summer day

aboard Pete Seeger’s sloop.

Net is cast into the Hudson

flop onto deck

three eels, saturated

with PCBs oozing into river

from General Electric capacitor plants

north of Albany.

Pete is angry,

for these American eels.

He will not live to see

the dredging of this poison,

thirty years off.

Sky above sails

fills with flumes of acid

smoke, burns the wings

of moths & wildflower petals.

This sloop named Clearwater,

as a child I grasp

hopefulness versus

dreadful odds.

I know smallness.

I don’t yet know futility.

Bio:

Jason O'Toole is a Rhysling Award nominated poet, musician, and elder advocate. He is the author of two poetry collections published by The Red Salon. He was the singer for the NY Hardcore band Life's Blood and currently collaborates with the experimental composers Alec K. Redfearn and Herr Lounge Corps.