"Watershed" by U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend June 17, 2017   Watershed   Tracy K. Smith

200 cows         more than 600 hilly acres             property would have been even larger had  J not sold 66 acres to DuPont for         waste from its Washington Works factory where J was employed                                                     did not want to sell             but needed money   poor health          mysterious ailments   Not long after the sale cattle began to act deranged                            footage shot on a camcorder grainy          intercut with static          Images jump repeat      sound accelerates               slows down                               quality of a horror movie   the rippling shallow water       the white ash       trees shedding their leaves                                                 a large pipe discharging green water                                                   a skinny red cow hair missing      back humped                                                   a dead black calf in snow         its eye       a brilliant chemical blue                                                   a calf's bisected head              liver     heart    stomachs    kidneys                          gall bladder      some dark      some green                    cows with stringy tails         malformed hooves                  lesions      red receded eyes        suffering   slobbering                          staggering like drunks   It don't look like                              anything I've been into before                                       I began rising through the ceiling of each floor in the hospital as though I were being pulled by some force outside my own volition. I continued rising until I passed through the roof itself and found myself in the sky. I began to move much more quickly past the mountain range near the hospital and over the city. I was swept away by some unknown force, and started to move at an enormous speed. Just moving like a thunderbolt through a darkness.     R's taking on the case I found to be inconceivable   It just felt like the right thing to do                                                                      a great opportunity to use my background for people who                                  really needed it                                             R: filed a federal suit                                            pulled permits                                                 land deeds                                                           a letter that mentioned a substance at the landfill                                                     PFOA                                      perfluorooctanoic acid   a soap-like agent used in                                                Scotchgard TM                                                                            Teflon TM   PFOA:                 was to be incinerated or                               sent to chemical waste facilities                                          not to be flushed into water or sewers   DuPont:                  pumped hundreds of thousands of pounds                           into the Ohio River                      dumped tons of PFOA sludge                           into open unlined pits    PFOA:              increased the size of the liver in rats and rabbits                                        (results replicated in dogs)              caused birth defects in rats                    caused cancerous testicular pancreatic and                           liver tumors in lab animals                    possible DNA damage from exposure               bound to plasma proteins in blood                   was found circulating through each organ                     high concentrations in the blood of factory workers                 children of pregnant employees had eye defects                        dust vented from factory chimneys settled well-beyond                           the property line              entered the water table              concentration in drinking water 3x international safety limit              study of workers linked exposure with prostate cancer              worth $1 billion in annual profit   (It don't look like anything I've been into before)         Every individual thing glowed with life. Bands of energy were being dispersed from a huge universal heartbeat, faster than a raging river. I found I could move as fast as I could think.     DuPont:                did not make this information public                declined to disclose this finding                       considered switching to new compound that appeared less toxic                         and stayed in the body for a much shorter duration of time                decided against it                decided it needed to find a landfill for toxic sludge                bought 66 acres from a low-level employee                         at the Washington Works facility   (J needed money                                                   had been in poor health      a dead black calf                                                        its eye chemical blue           cows slobbering                                                         staggering like drunks)     I could perceive the Earth, outer space, and humanity from a spacious and indescribable 'God's eye view.' I saw a planet to my left covered with vegetation of many colors no signs of mankind or any familiar shorelines. The waters were living waters, the grass was living, the trees and the animals were more alive than on earth.                                       D's first husband had been a chemist                                                                      When you worked at DuPont in this town you could have everything you wanted                                           DuPont paid for his education           secured him a mortgage           paid a generous salary  even gave him a free supply of PFOA     He explained that the planet we call Earth really has a proper name, has its own energy, is a true living being, was very strong but has been weakened considerably.                                                                        which she used as soap in the family's dishwasher          I could feel Earth's desperate situation. Her aura appeared to be very strange, made me wonder if it was radioactivity. It was bleak, faded in color, and its sound was heart wrenching.                                                                   Sometimes her husband came home sick—fever, nausea, diarrhea, vomiting—'Teflon flu'                an emergency hysterectomy                                                                     a second surgery             I could tell the Doctor everything he did upon my arrival down to the minute details of accompanying the nurse to the basement of the hospital to get the plasma for me; everything he did while also being instructed and shown around in Heaven.   Clients called R to say they had received diagnoses of cancer          or that a family member had died                     W who had cancer had died of a heart attack               Two years later W's wife died of cancer   They knew this stuff was harmful             and they put it in the water anyway     I suspect that Earth may be a place of education.   PFOA detected in:                                 American blood banks                                     blood or vital organs of:                                                                             Atlantic salmon                                                                                                     swordfish                                                                                     striped mullet                                                                             gray seals                                                                             common cormorants                                                                             Alaskan polar bears                                                                             brown pelicans                                                                             sea turtles                                                                             sea eagles                                                                             California sea lions                                                                                   Laysan albatrosses on a wildlife refuge                                                                                           in the middle of the North Pacific       Ocean                 Viewing the myriad human faces with an indescribable, intimate, and profound love. This love was all around me, it was everywhere, but at the same time it was also me.                                             We see a situation           that has gone                                     from Washington Works   All that was important in life was the love we felt.                                                                                             to statewide   All that was made, said, done, or even thought without love was undone.                                        to everywhere                     it's global                                    In my particular case, God took the form of a luminous warm water. It does not mean that a luminous warm water is God. It is just that, for me, it was experiencing the luminous warm water that I felt the most connection with the eternal.            Copyright © 2017 Tracy K. Smith. Used with permission of the author. "Watershed" appears in Wade in the Water, forthcoming from Graywolf Press in April 2018. About This Poem   "'Watershed' is a found poem drawn from two sources: a New York Times Magazine January 6, 2016, article by Nathaniel Rich entitled, 'The Lawyer Who Became DuPont's Worst Nightmare,' and excerpts of the narratives of survivors of near-death experiences as catalogued on www.nderf.org." —Tracy K. Smith   Tracy K. Smith is the Poet Laureate of the United States. Her book Life on Mars (Graywolf Press, 2011) received the Pulitzer Prize in poetry. Smith's new poetry collection, Wade in the Water, will be published by Graywolf Press in April 2018. She directs the creative writing program at Princeton University and lives in New Jersey. Poetry by Smith   Life on Mars (Graywolf Press, 2011) P.O.P Video: Tracy K. Smith Reads Seamus Heaney's "Digging" and More Four Questions for U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith The Line Between Two Worlds: Tracy K. 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