Friends,
I know many of you, like me, have been following the unfolding of the Flint, Michigan water debacle with a growing sense of horror. How could the public trust be so flagrantly and continuously betrayed? And the news keeps coming.
It's hard to feel that we citizens have any power at all. But we have our voices. And at times like this, poetry helps me to distill my thoughts.
I was struck by the story of people confronting Michigan Governor Rick Snyder in an Ann Arbor restaurant by shouting, "How's your water? Is it clean?" I was equally struck by the reported silence of others in the restaurant. That silence, it seems to me, is not an emptiness, but something very, very full. There are also the dismissive phrases written by state government staffers: “Apparently it’s going to be a thing now,” and the label "anti-everything."
So here is my poem.
INQUIRY
how’s your water governor
is it clean does it clear
your clouded mind we see
you’re a little shy of the questions
and the cameras and Congress
and the city of Flint and
we’re wondering if you’re
okay maybe someone’s told you
if you close your eyes it’s only
a game there’s nobody there but
friends or fellow beneficiaries
or you think you’re the one
who’s invisible drawing a magic
cloak over yourself and ballots
and budget bills and pipelines
and lab samples hide-and-seek
from subpoenas maybe that’s
the game but this isn’t just
a matter of solving a problem
with the pipes governor no it runs
deeper we wonder what you’ve been
drinking to acquire this special
blindness all the people and kids
the brown water the tufts of hair
this noise all the anti-everything
is just us governor who drink water
trying to get your attention
governor trying to shake you
out of this bad bad dream
and another thing this silence
is not nothing that’s people too
listening you’ve got our
attention and yes apparently
this is going to be a thing
governor until you open
your eyes and see us
clear as water