A Poetic Response to Writer's Support of Fracking - John Rotto Letter-to-Editor

About last week’s letter on freezing 
without fracking, I hope he was teasing. 
I think it is clear, 
don’t dig frac sand ‘round here 
or we all may be coughing and wheezing.

The dust blows around in the air. 
The well water goes bad, is that fair? 
Who wants silicosis? 
I think we should know this: 
Once it’s corporate owned, they don’t care.

Mr. Engelhardt thinks anti-frackers are fools. 
The big corporations should have all the tools 
that they need to keep taking 
the oil that is making 
the lifestyle that gulps fossil fuels.

With corporate business, he’s really impressed 
just the fact that it’s spreading, he says, makes it best. 
But it’s like a disease, 
cancer, if you please. 
It’s time that this issue’s addressed.

You see, corporations don’t serve human need. 
It’s much more important for them to serve greed. 
It’s simply a trait. 
It requires blind faith. 
“Just consume, and your soul will be freed!”

If we don’t find a way to keep greed well in check, 
the imbalance it makes in our world raises heck. 
To pretend that today 
there is no other way 
makes our future a pain in the neck.

If we vote to just let it keep growing
with the carbon monoxide we’re blowing 
plus the CAFOs and spray, 
with our health we will pay. 
Don’t you think, maybe, we should get going?

Because, isn’t it true, 
don’t we know, me and you, 
that living in poison is worse than the flu? 
How can we be happy 
when the earth is all crappy, 
and the air, it all smells like dog doo?

Now I’m stuck in this rhyme. 
Yes, it happens sometime. 
It’s a feeling. I wouldn’t quite say it’s sublime. 
But isn’t life good? 
Can’t you see that we should 
save ourselves, and that not to’s a crime?


Jon Rotto
Rural Decorah

(Submitted to Decorah Newspapers)