Congratulations on the excellent and important piece on Sable Oil and drilling in the Santa Barbara Channel. The following poem comments on drilling in this environmentally sensitive area.
DRILL, BABY, DRILL
September 15, 1961-
New bride and I, a rented one-bedroom apartment
a block from Sunset Boulevard in Pacific Palisades.
She’s a teacher at Marquez Knolls elementary.
Two months later, the school and we evacuated —
smoke pouring from the Bel Aire fire above UCLA —
484 homes gone, but sparing the Palisades.
DRILL, BABY, DRILL
October 20, 1968-
Moved back to Pacific Palisades to house-sit —
three-story house on Castellammare Drive,
overlooked Getty Villa and offshore oil platforms.
Another evacuation, this time us and two kids.
Malibu fire threatened the beach area —
A false alarm — it missed Pacific Palisades.
BURN, BABY, BURN
January 7, 2025-
Fire tornado hits the Palisades and Altadena —
in hours, thousands of homes, only chimneys left,
Marquez Knolls school gone, our former apartment gone,
the village of Pacific Palisades, erased from earth,
churches, stores, parks and trees, all smoking ruins,
$250 billion, 16,000 structures, 29 souls — all lost.
DRILL, BABY, DRILL
January 20, 2025-
What measure $250 billion? 35 million barrels
of oil sold by Exxon, Chevron, and Occidental —
revenue for these industry giants, and debts owed:
17 million tons of greenhouse gas released;
dividends of $4/share for stockholders;
profits from pollution, blood money for investors.
BURN, BABY, BURN
February 2, 2025-
Burn land, burn homes, burn cars, burn pets, burn people, burn all —
burn keepsakes, burn memories, burn everything that is precious.
An ash wasteland, a scorched doll, a melted bicycle.
Dazed residents breath smoke, seeking any memory —
but all is lost — ashes to ashes, dust to dust,
smoldering wasteland poisoning air and sea.
DRILL, BABY, DRILL
December 31, 2050-
What recourse, what false hope, is left to us? A dying
Industry, abandoned oil fields, cemeteries for ashes,
burial place for memories, hopes gone, lives lost,
future dreams bitter, generations struck down.
Unchecked, air and sea grow hotter, until nature
itself brings an end to this human-caused plague…
