Lament
Lament
By Debra Marquart
north dakota i’m worried about you
the companies you keep all these new friends north dakota
beyond the boom, beyond the precious resources
do you really think they care what becomes of you
north dakota you used to be the shy one
enchanted secret land loved by only a few north dakota
when i traveled away and told people i belonged to you north dakota
your name rolled awkwardly from their tongues
a mouth full of rocks, the name of a foreign country
north dakota you were the blushing wallflower
the natural beauty, nearly invisible, always on the periphery
north dakota the least visited state in the union
now everyone knows your name north dakota
the blogs and all the papers are talking about you even 60 minutes
i’m collecting your clippings north dakota
the pictures of you from space
the flares of natural gas in your northern corner
like an exploding supernova
a massive city where no city exists
a giant red blight upon the land
and those puncture wounds north dakota take care of yourself
the injection sites I’ve see them on the maps
eleven thousand active wells one every two miles
all your indicators are up north dakota
four hundred billion barrels, some estimates say
more oil than we have water to extract
more oil than we have atmosphere to burn
north dakota you could run the table right now you could write your own ticket
so, how can i tell you this? north dakota, your politicians
are co-opted (or cowards or bought-out or honest and thwarted)
they’re lowering the tax rate for oil companies
they’re greasing the wheels that need no greasing
they’re practically giving the water away
north dakota dear sleeping beauty please, wake up
they have opened you up and said, come in take everything
what will become of your sacred places,
what will become of the prairie dog, the wolf, the wild horses, the eagle,
the meadowlark, the fox, the elk,
the pronghorn antelope, the rare mountain lion,
the roads, the air, the topsoil,
your people, your people,
what will become of the water?
north dakota who will ever be able to live with you
once this is all over i’m speaking to you now
as one wildcat girl to another be careful north Dakota
Debra Marquart is a professor of English in the MFA Program in Creative Writing & Environment at Iowa State University and the senior editor of Flyway: Journal of Writing and Environment. Marquart is the author of five books, including three poetry collections—Small Buried Things, Everything's a Verb, and From Sweetness—and a short story collection, The Hunger Bone: Rock & Roll Stories, which draws on her experiences as a female road musician. Narrative Magazine selected Marquart’s poem, “Door-to-Door,” as one of the top five poems to appear in Narrative in 2013.