Savior and Sin

Isabel Carmen Johnson

oil
wreaks havoc
upon the land of the bayous
unto us a star will come
plentiful the humans will look and see beauty
but in addition your intrinsic malice savior and sin
suffocating in your abundance however ultimately poised to consume death below
the fiber in your body will become the liberator who seizes the black snake winding
its way down swamp only to meet hyacinth springing forth from blood teaching
forgiveness though humans create war against nature because of greed
we make mistakes so give atonement for our wrong doings
and land in ruin human harms are ever present
use your body and save filthy lands to come
rescue us from us

The Science

This poem is inspired This poem is inspired by the ecological catastrophe of an oil spill, and it also introduces its potential hero: the water hyacinth (Pontederia crassipes). Oil contamination always poses an environmental risk in the Gulf Coast like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 that destroyed more than 1,000 miles of shoreline and countless inland bayous and wetlands. The water hyacinth is usually seen as a pest as it is invasive in the US and costly to manage due to excessive biomass accumulation. However, recent work has repurposed the water hyacinth for phytoremediation (the process of using living plants to clean environments), effectively removing oil through its oil-absorbing, cellulose-rich structure. The flowers of the water hyacinth are bilaterally symmetrical with a bright yellow, star-like mark on the uppermost petal, which functions as a nectar guide for pollinators.

The Poet

Isabel Carmen Johnson is a PhD Candidate at Louisiana State University in the biological sciences department. Her research focuses on plants that can survive in extreme environments, and she is very passionate about science education/outreach and the combination of science and art. Read more of her work on her substack.

Next poem: Shedding Light on ALAN by Deborah Lloyd