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Caribou Silhouette by Peter Mather. Caribou bull
silhouetted in fog along the coastal plain of
Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,
the calving grounds for the 170,000 strong herd.
A provision in the #GOPTaxScamBill allows
a section of the ANWR to be opened to
oil exploration.
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all that some of them knew.
Enough to know Corker
got his money. Forget
the bullets that sneak in
special funds for Senator
Toomey. How the landed
white gentry pass through,
pass upwards wealth.
Claim simplicity. A tax bill
opens up drilling in the Arctic
Refuge for one more vote
to sully and abuse
the wild space the first people
sing to, songs of we are
the caribou people. Focus
your cameras carefully
if you want to catch winks,
or that the fog drips chill
into hearts of the many
who say no. Our national
mirror clouds over
in the face of privilege.
We see dimly.
The fog settles, not just
into the mist of war, a shawl
of sadness over us, the, kin
to the tired, the poor, yes kin
even to the caribou people.
Tricia Knoll is an Oregon poet well accustomed to fog and rain. What she cannot excuse is the claims of Senators voting for the tax bill that they did not know or care how much each stood to gain from passage of the bill.