A Sad Day in the Treehouse

Having just completed an environmental fairy tale to be staged by the Early Childhood Division of the New Orleans Dance Academy next month, I am nearly numb by the magnitude of the oil spill in the Gulf that has taken lives and livelihoods, and threatened our existence as we know it. In recent months, I was delighted, in researching flora and fauna indigenous to the Louisiana forests, to find a wealth of poetry in terminology. Butterflies such as "Great Purple Hairstreak" and "Cassius Blue." Amphibians like "Dusky Gophers" and "Tiger Salamanders." Birds that included the "Yellow-breasted Chat" and "Chuck Will's Widow." The story nearly wrote itself. And even prompted me to pen, "Could heaven be much greater, or any more divine?"

Time was when people actually received prescriptions from their doctors to come to Mandeville to partake of the clean, invigorating air. I cannot describe the horror I felt when I walked outside to my front porch today and took in the miasma of the spill, now being burned in a day late/dollar short attempt to mitigate the damages.

Yes, we have a bit of heaven on earth in these parts. But if you want to see what hell is like, look no further:
http://photos.nola.com/tpphotos/2010/04/oil_rig_explosion_21.html