by Joanne Kennedy Frazer
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| Caribou calves in the Utukok uplands in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. Photo Credit: Patrick Endres/ Design Pics Inc., via Alamy and The New York Times. |
The Biden administration defended in federal court the Willow project, a huge oil drilling operation proposed on Alaska’s North Slope that was approved by the Trump administration and is being fought by environmentalists… The multibillion-dollar plan from ConocoPhillips to drill in part of the National Petroleum Reserve would produce more than 100,000 barrels of oil a day until 2050. It is being challenged by environmental groups who said the Trump administration failed to consider the impact that drilling would have on fragile wildlife and that burning the oil would have on global warming… In a paradox worthy of Kafka, ConocoPhillips plans to install ‘chillers’ into the permafrost—which is thawing fast because of climate change—to keep it solid enough to drill for oil, the burning of which will continue to worsen ice melt. —The New York Times, May 28, 2021
on the other hand...
The Biden administration on Tuesday suspended oil drilling leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge… The decision sets up a process that could halt drilling in one of the largest tracts of untouched wilderness in the United States, home to migrating waterfowl, caribou and polar bears. —The New York Times, June 1, 2021
Mother Nature’s
non-human earthlings
cultivate in the hearts
of those
who pay attention
this wisdom:
as we have co-evolved
with human dwellers
they have relied
on our nurturance
and guidance.
Earth now demands
reciprocation.
Joanne Kennedy Frazer is a retired peace and justice director and educator for faith-based organizations at state, diocesan and national levels. Penning her life’s passions into poetry has become the delight and vocation of her silvering years. Her work has appeared in several Old Mountain Press anthologies, Poetic Portions 2015 anthology, Soul-lit Journal of Spiritual Poetry, Postcard Poems and Prose Magazine, Panoply Literary Zine, Snapdragon Journal, Whirlwind Magazine, Kakalak, Red Clay Review and The New Verse News. Five of her poems have been turned into a song cycle entitled Resistance by composer Steven Luksan, and performed in Seattle and Durham. Her chapbook Being Kin was published in 2019. She lives in Durham, NC.