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Friday 29 May 2015

Wallace Stevens: Thinking of a Relation between the Images of Metaphors

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Perkiomen Bridge | by Montgomery County Planning Commission

Schuylkill River Trail Bridge over the Perkiomen Creek: photo by Montgomery County Planning Commission, 2 November 2013


The wood-doves are singing along the Perkiomen.
The bass lie deep, still afraid of the Indians.


In the one ear of the fisherman, who is all
One ear, the wood-doves are singing a single song.


The bass keep looking ahead, upstream, in one
Direction, shrinking from the spit and splash


Of waterish spears. The fisherman is all
One eye, in which the dove resembles a dove.


There is one dove, one bass, one fisherman.
Yet coo becomes rou-coo, rou-coo. How close


To the unstated theme each variation comes . . .
In that one ear it might strike perfectly:


State the disclosure. In that one eye the dove
Might spring to sight and yet remain a dove.


The fisherman might be the single man
In whose breast, the dove, alighting, would grow still.


Wallace Stevens (1879-1955): Thinking of a Relation between the Images of Metaphors, from Transport to Summer, 1947


Snyder Road Bridge | by Montgomery County Planning Commission

Snyder Road Bridge. Great iron truss in Green Lane Park. It has been closed for years. A calm Perkiomen Creek on an early Saturday morning: photo by Montgomery County Planning Commission, 5 October 2013 

Along the East Branch Perkiomen Creek | by brainwise

Along the East Branch Perkiomen Creek: photo by brainwise, 27 September 2014

Perkiomen Creek | by Montgomery County Planning Commission

Perkiomen Creek. Perkiomen Creek fly fishing above Church Road: photo by Montgomery County Planning Commission, 22 September 2013

East Branch | by Montgomery County Planning Commission

East Branch. View of the East Branch of the Perkiomen Creek on an early Sunday morning: photo by Montgomery County Planning Commission, 6 July 2014
 
East_Branch_V | by Montgomery County Planning Commission

East Branch V. East Branch of the Perkiomen Creek about a mile above the confluence with Perkiomen Creek: photo by Montgomery County Planning Commission, 23 March 2013
 
Day 249 - Dinner | by MissTessmacher

Juvenile Green Heron carrying of a crayfish for dinner. At the dam along the Perkiomen Creek:
photo by MissTessmacher, 6 September 2010

Green Heron | by MissTessmacher

Green Heron at the dam along the Perkiomen Creek: photo by MissTessmacher, 11 September 2010

Oil Spill On Schuykill River, July 1972 | by The U.S. National Archives

Oil spill on the Schuylkill River, 5 July 1972, following Hurricane Agnes: oil-covered greenery on the river bank: photo by Dick Swanson for the Environmental Protection Agency's Documerica project, July 1972 (U.S. National Archives)

File:Schuylkillmap.png 

Map of the Schuylkill River watershed in eastern Pennsylvania (based on USGS data): image by Karl Musser, 26 December 2006

Thinking of a Relation is one of several poems in Transport to Summer that consciously evoke the poet's origins and early life in eastern Pennsylvania, where he was belatedly locating a central site of autobiographical reminiscence and reflection. In the construction of a poetic mythos, this landscape, at once experienced and endeared, became fantastic, loomed over by shadows, sometimes "shadows of friends" ("A Completely New Set of Objects"), sometimes shadows more ominous -- here, unseen but imagined figures "upstream", round the next bend of the Perkiomen, representing the now absent "Indians", whose "waterish spears" are still feared by the ahistorical bass in the creek.

"Neshaminy is a little place seven or eight miles from Doylestown," Stevens wrote to genealogist Lila James Roney on 2 November 1942, naming a small Pennsylvania community that was for him the locus of a now half-imaginal personal/paternal/pastoral arcadia recalled from boyhood. "To the west of it lies the country through which the Perkiomen Creek flows. This creek, when I was a boy was famous for its bass. It almost amounts to a genealogical fact that all his life long my father used to fish in [the Perkiomen], and this can only mean that he did it as a boy."

Stevens came from Holland Dutch stock; his native region had a strong Moravian Dutch presence. Over time, under British colonial influence and thereafter, the native Lenape people of the region -- the departed but not-forgot-by-the-bass "Indians" -- were "removed" to the west; they are remembered now only in place-names, many of which are inscribed in Stevens' poems of this period. 

Perkiomen Creek is a 37.7-mile-long (60.7 km.) tributary of the Schuylkill River in Berks, Lehigh and Montgomery counties, Pennsylvania.
The name Perkiomen derives from the Lenape term Pakhim Unk [Pah-Keym-Unk] -- in English, "cranberry place".

A historical scholar has held up the "removal" of the Lenape of the North American Middle Atlantic as a paradigmatic instance of the progress of Western imperialism in the age of expansion:

"This study explores how changing power relations influenced communication and exchange across cultural boundaries in the early to mid-eighteenth century -- the period that set the stage for Western imperialism. The focus is on two areas -- Tanjavur and Lenape country. Though quite distant from each other culturally and geographically -- the former was located in South India, the latter in the North American Middle Atlantic -- their histories followed similar trajectories. Both underwent dramatic changes. They experienced a period of peace and stability in the early eighteenth century. From the 1730s, geopolitical changes brought about political destabilization, militarization, and violence that culminated in the Seven Years' War (1756-1763).

"Accelerated British expansion was the major cause of these developments, since it violated earlier arrangements. In South India, the British East India company tightened its control of maritime trade and textile production. The state of Tanjavur was heavily affected because much of its tax income depended on rice and textile exports. In the Middle Atlantic, British expansion was accompanied by increasingly aggressive land acquisitions. Lenape polities were confronted with Pennsylvania's changing land policies from the 1720s. When the French state tried to curtail British expansion from the late 1730s, conflicts escalated. In the process, the rationality of empires began to dominate communication and exchange across cultural boundaries. Local concerns were muted.

"This study is predominantly based on sources produced by Central European missionaries -- Lutheran Pietists in Tanjavur and Moravians in Lenape country. Both sets of sources are extensive and unique. Pietists communicated with hundreds of local informants who represented a cross-section of society in Tanjavur. Moravians were the only contemporaries who lived in Lenape communities for extended periods of time and recorded their experiences in detail. Initially, neither Pietist nor Moravian missionaries identified with the British empire. The state of Tanjavur and Lenape polities integrated the two religious groups with a certain degree of success. Yet, their European ritual leaders belonged to global networks that depended on the infrastructure of empires. Their dependence on British means of transport and communication increased as British maritime dominance grew. Their views became aligned with British interests."

Axel Utz: Cultural exchange, imperialist violence, and pious missions: Local perspectives from Tanjavur and Lenape country, 1720--1760 (2011, Abstract)

Fig. 1: The Delaware Westward Migration


The Delaware Westward Migration: image via Rees, Mark A., Gina S. Powell, and Neal H. Lopinot. Delaware Town Archaeological Survey and site assessment in the James River Valley of Christian County, Missouri, Center for Archaeological Research Report (2000)

Wednesday 27 May 2015

Walt Whitman / John Neubauer: By Broad Potomac's Shore

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Sunset On The Potomac, September 1973 | by The U.S. National Archives

Sunset on the polluted Potomac: photo by John Neubauer for the Environmental Protection Agency's DOCUMERICA project, September 1972 (U.S. National Archives)

By broad Potomac's shore -- again old tongue!
(Still uttering -- still ejaculating -- canst never cease this babble?)
Again, old heart so gay -- again to you, your sense, the full flush spring returning;
Again the freshness and the odors -- again Virginia's summer sky, pellucid blue and silver,
Again the forenoon purple of the hills,
Again the deathless grass, so noiseless soft and green,
Again the blood-red roses blooming.

Perfume this book of mine O blood-red roses!
Lave subtly with your waters every line Potomac!
Give me of you, O spring, before I close, to put between its pages!
O forenoon purple of the hills, before I close, of you!
O smiling earth -- O summer sun, give me of you!
O deathless grass, of you!
 
Walt Whitman (1819-1892): By Broad Potomac's Shore, from Leaves of Grass (fifth edition, 1871)
 
Fishing The Potomac For Catfish, April 1973 | by The U.S. National Archives 
 Fishing the polluted Potomac for catfish: photo by John Neubauer for the Environmental Protection Agency's DOCUMERICA project, April 1973 (U.S. National Archives)

Fishing The Muddied Potomac Near Mt. Vernon, April 1973 | by The U.S. National Archives
 
Fishing the muddied Potomac near Mt. Vernon: photo by John Neubauer for the Environmental Protection Agency's DOCUMERICA project, April 1973 (U.S. National Archives)

A Small Power Boat Makes A U-turn On The Potomac Just Above Mt. Vernon, April 1973 | by The U.S. National Archives

A small power boat makes a U-turn on the Potomac just above Mt. Vernon: photo by John Neubauer for the Environmental Protection Agency's DOCUMERICA project, April 1973 (U.S. National Archives)

Small Powerboat On Potomac River Above Mt. Vernon Churns Up Silt, April 1973 | by The U.S. National Archives

A small power boat on the Potomac River above Mt. Vernon churns up silt: photo by John Neubauer for the Environmental Protection Agency's DOCUMERICA project, April 1973 (U.S. National Archives)

Small Powerboat On The Potomac River Above Mt. Vernon Virginia Stirs Up Silt, April 1973 | by The U.S. National Archives

A small power boat on the Potomac River above Mt. Vernon stirs up silt: photo by John Neubauer for the Environmental Protection Agency's DOCUMERICA project, April 1973 (U.S. National Archives)

Power Boats On The Polluted Potomac, September 1972 | by The U.S. National Archives

Power boats on the polluted Potomac: photo by John Neubauer for the Environmental Protection Agency's DOCUMERICA project, September 1972 (U.S. National Archives)

Sunset On The Polluted Potomac, September 1973 | by The U.S. National Archives

Sunset on the polluted Potomac
: photo by John Neubauer for the Environmental Protection Agency's DOCUMERICA project, September 1972 (U.S. National Archives)

Raw Sewage Flows Into The Potomac At Georgetown Gap, April 1973 | by The U.S. National Archives
 
Raw sewage flows into the Potomac at Georgetown Gap. The Watergate complex and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts are nearby: photo by John Neubauer for the Environmental Protection Agency's DOCUMERICA project, April 1973 (U.S. National Archives)

The Georgetown Gap, Through Which Raw Sewage Flows Into The Potomac. Watergate Complex In The Rear, April 1973 | by The U.S. National Archives
 
Raw sewage flows into the Potomac at Georgetown Gap. Watergate complex in the background: photo by John Neubauer for the Environmental Protection Agency's DOCUMERICA project, April 1973 (U.S. National Archives)

Tuesday 26 May 2015

Robert Creeley: For Debora

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This photo taken on May 21, 201...TOPSHOTS This photo taken on May 21, 2015 shows an ethnic Rohingya Muslim woman looking back as she rides a tuk tuk near a camp set up outside the city of Sittwe in Myanmar's Rakhine state. Malaysia ordered search and rescue missions on May 22 for thousands of boatpeople stranded at sea, as Myanmar hosted talks with US and Southeast Asian envoys on the migrant exodus from its shores.  AFP PHOTO / YE AUNG THUYe Aung Thu/AFP/Getty Images

An ethnic Rohingya Muslim woman looking back as she rides a tuk tuk near a camp set up outside the city of Sittwe in Myanmar’s Rakhine state. Malaysia ordered search and rescue missions Friday for thousands of boatpeople stranded at sea, as Myanmar hosted talks with US and Southeast Asian envoys on the migrant exodus from its shores: photo by Ye Aung Thu/AFP via FT Photo Diary, 22 May 2015

"I have forgotten all 
human relations, but not

poetry." I have for- 
gotten all that seemed

significant but not 
the consequence. I have
  
never seen this before 
this I have wanted to

make this trip many 
times but got lost getting

there I have had many 
sorrows in my literal

life but much happiness
also I have forgotten


what it was they thought 
to remember. I have forgotten.

Robert Creeley (1926-2005): For Debora, from Places, 1990


A Palestinian boy rests on an old armcha...A Palestinian boy rests on an old armchair in front of a dilapidated house on May 22, 2015 in Gaza City

A Palestinian boy rests on an old armchair in front of a dilapidated house on Friday in Gaza City: photo by Mohammed Abed/AFP via FT Photo Diary, 22 May 2015

Sunday 24 May 2015

Robinson Jeffers: Pelicans

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File:Pelicans diving.JPG

Pelicans at Turtle Beach: photo by Coveredinsevindust, 23 March 2013


Four pelicans went over the house,
Sculled their worn oars over the courtyard: I saw that ungainliness
Magnifies the idea of strength.
A lifting gale of sea-gulls followed them; slim yachts of the element,
Natural growths of the sky, no wonder
Light wings to leave the sea; but those grave weights toil, and are powerful,
And the wings torn with old storms remember
The cone that the oldest redwood dropped from, the tilting of continents,
The dinosaur’s day, the lift of new sea-lines.
The omnisecular spirit keeps the old with the new also.
Nothing at all has suffered erasure.
There is life not of our time. He calls ungainly bodies
As beautiful as the grace of horses.
He is weary of nothing; he watches air-planes; he watches pelicans.

Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962): Pelicans, November 1925, from American Poetry: A Miscellany, ed. Lewis Untermeyer, 1927


File:Diving pelican.JPG

Pelican in a dive: photo by Coveredinsevindust, 23 March 2013
 


Brown Pelicans and seagull, UCSB Lagoon, Goleta, California: photo by Steve Voght, 16 August 2009
 


Brown Pelican, Goleta, California: photo by Jon Sullivan, 28 July 2013



Brown Pelicans in flight, Goleta, California: photo by Jon Sullivan, 28 July 2013
 


Pelicans in flight, Goleta, California: photo by Jon Sullivan, 28 July 2013
 

 
 Pelicans skimming, Goleta, California: photo by Jon Sullivan, 28 July 2013
 


Petroleum pipeline signals future development off Mulholland Drive in the Santa Monica Mountains on the western edge of Los Angeles. The mountains contain the last semi-wilderness in Los Angeles County. Some 84 percent of the state's residents live within 30 miles of the coast, and this concentration has resulted in increased land use pressure. Of the 1,072 mile of mainland shoreline (excluding San Francisco Bay), 61 percent is privately owned: photo by Charles O'Rear (1941-), May 1975, from the DOCUMERICA series, an Environmental Protection Agency program to photographically document subjects of environmental concern, compiled 1972-1977 (U.S. National Archives)


 Oil covers rocks near Refugio state beach on Frida
y: photo by Justin Sullivan via the Guardian, 22 May 2015


A bird covered in oil spreads its wings as it sits on a rock near Refugio state beach on Friday
: photo by Justin Sullivan via the Guardian, 22 May 2015

Oil spill on Santa Barbara County coast

A bird covered in oil spreads its wings as it sits on a rock near Refugio State Beach in Goleta: photo by Justin Sullivan via Los Angeles Times, 21 May 2015

"Get oil out!

Oil-covered pelican
Workers at the Los Angeles Oiled Bird Care and Education Center work to clean an oil-covered pelican rescued from the spill at Refugio State Beach: photo by Irfan Khan via Los Angeles Times, 21 May 2015

Lesson of Santa Barbara oil spill: Leave petroleum in the ground: David Helvarg, Los Angeles Times, 22 May 2015

The 2015 oil spill near Santa Barbara is a reminder of 1969 and this message: Get oil out
Memorial Day marks the beginning of high beach season, but there are miles of coastline near Santa Barbara that will be out of commission this weekend thanks to a pipeline oil spill.

This is how most offshore oil works: You drill miles off the coast, pump the oil onshore to be processed and pipe it along the coast. On Tuesday, an underground pipeline that runs between Gaviota and Refugio State Beach ruptured, and the oil followed gravity into a culvert and back out to sea.

More than 100,000 gallons of oil may have spilled, including an estimated 20,000 on the beach and in an oil slick in one of our nation's richest marine habitats. The pipeline company has apologized for the “inconvenience” all this will cause. What's particularly troubling is that compared with drilling rigs, pipelines are supposed to be the safe part of offshore oil operations.

California was the site of the world's first offshore drilling, from piers in Summerland in the late 19th century. By 1901, the San Jose Mercury News reported, “The whole face of the townsite is aslime with oil leakages,” and Santa Barbara banned oil piers. It took the federal government more than 60 years to convince the locals that drilling technology had advanced enough that spills would be a thing of the past. Then, in 1969, a Union Oil rig experienced a blowout and more than 3 million gallons of oil coated 35 miles of Santa Barbara County beaches six inches thick. Seabirds, fish and mammals died in droves.

The sight of dying, oil-covered birds in the same year that the polluted Cuyahoga River caught fire in Cleveland gave birth to the modern environmental movement. When President Nixon made an appearance in Santa Barbara, he was met by thousands of angry residents and the rallying cry “Get oil out!”


Oil-covered pelican

A pelican covered in oil sits on a beach about a mile west of Refugio State Beach on Wednesday, May 20: photo by Kenneth Song / Associated Press via Los Angeles Times, 20 May 2015

As the cleanup continues this week at Refugio State Beach, President Obama should make his own pilgrimage to the West Coast to check out the results of offshore drilling. He seems to have learned little from the BP blowout five years ago in the Gulf of Mexico. That disaster killed 11 workers and spilled 500 million gallons of oil, the result of gross negligence on the part of BP, according to a federal court ruling. The BP spill is still rippling through the gulf. On Wednesday, a new study reported that hundreds of bottlenose dolphins continue to die every year as a result of the spill.

Despite the steep costs of BP's negligence, the Obama administration proposes to open up new drilling sites along much of the Atlantic seaboard, and in the remote Arctic Ocean off Alaska, beginning in 2017.

Last week, in the largest citizen lobby for ocean conservation in U.S. history, nonpartisan delegations from 24 states held 163 meetings on Capitol Hill to oppose any new offshore drilling, among other issues. Along the Eastern Seaboard, more than 60 towns and cities, under Democratic and Republican leadership, have passed resolutions against oil surveys and drilling that might threaten their coastal economies and way of life.

On May 16 in Seattle, hundreds of protesters in kayaks surrounded Shell Oil's Arctic exploratory rig, the Polar Pioneer, hoping to keep it away from Alaska's Chukchi Sea during the brief upcoming Arctic summer. Coast Guard Commandant Paul Zukunft has pulled no punches about the risks of drilling and shipping in the Arctic, warning of a “black swan” incident -- a disaster of historic proportion -- if something like a major oil spill were to occur, because there would be no way to effectively respond to it.

On Wednesday, President Obama told the graduating class at the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn., that the science on climate change is clear and U.S. national security is threatened by global warming. What he didn't mention was the rest of the science, the part that indicates that leaving petroleum reserves in the ground -- and under the sea bed -- is the best way to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change.

The 1969 oil spill in Santa Barbara galvanized a movement and effectively ended additional drilling leases off California's coast. The 2015 spill is a reminder that the work of that movement is far from finished. The dangerous prospect of offshore leases will be a factor in the presidential primaries on the East Coast. The protests against dangerous drilling for Arctic oil will continue. It's past time to “Get oil out.”

David Helvarg is executive director of Blue Frontier, an ocean conservation and policy group. His latest book is "Saved by the Sea — Hope, Heartbreak and Wonder in the Blue World".


Oil-covered-pelican

Workers at the Los Angeles Oiled Bird Care and Education Center work to clean an oil-covered pelican rescued from the spill at Refugio State Beach: photo by Irfan Khan via Los Angeles Times, 21 May 2015

Oil spill on Santa Barbara County coast

Oil spill on Santa Barbara County coast. A "Beach Closed" sign is posted at Coal Oil Point in Isla Vista. Many state beaches have been closed in the area, but some people still made their way to the shore: photo by Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times, 23 May 2015

Great blue heron

A great blue heron hides behind a rock on the beach at Coal Oil Point in Isla Vista. The beach was closed because of the oil spill.: photo by Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times, 23 May 2015




Brown Pelican in a dive, Goleta, California: photo by Jon Sullivan, 28 July 2013

File:In a dive.JPG

Brown Pelican in a dive: photo by Coveredinsevindust, 11 March 2014

Friday 22 May 2015

Crude

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Oil spill on Santa Barbara County coast
 
Oil spill on Santa Barbara County coast. A sea lion covered in oil lies on the beach near Refugio State Beach, about 100 feet from where the oil spill flowed into the ocean off the Santa Barbara County coast: photo by Bethany Mollenkof / Los Angeles Times 22 May 2015

Santa Barbara County oil spill: Toll on marine life begins to show: Monte Morin and Javier Panzar for Los Angeles Times, 22 May 2015

Crews are working around the clock to clean up the site of an oil spill in Santa Barbara County that has sent tens of thousands of crude into the Pacific Ocean and left even more saturating the soil.

About 100 feet from where the rupture occurred, a sea lion raised its oil-covered head to the sky and collapsed on the beach. It rested its head on a rock and rolled onto its back, exposing a shiny, oil-stained belly.

UC Santa Barbara marine sciences doctoral student Anna James stopped collecting water samples and looked over at the struggling animal.

"That poor sea lion really puts it all into perspective," she said.

Sea lions normally run off when humans are near, she said. The sea lion was too tired to move.

The sea lion, which appeared to be female, wallowed in the sand just below a rocky cliffside covered almost entirely in black oil.

Marine mammals and fish are turning up on shore both dead and alive. A pair of cleanup workers in protective suits walked up the beach with nets and boxes. They were ready to capture and clean birds, not sea lions.

California Department of Fish and Wildlife Environmental scientist Colleen Young stopped several yards short of the sea lion and scribbled down notes.

She said they would have to wait for a special team trained to deal with sea lions. Just then, the sea lion rose up on its oil-stained flippers and began shuffling to the water. It went into the surf and disappeared into the water.

Young said that even though it was not good for the sea lion to be back in the polluted water, it does not necessarily spell disaster for the animal.

The sea lion's blubber will protect it and provide warmth, she said, unlike a sea otter that can suffer with oil in its fur.

"Sea lions can cope with it quite a bit better than sea otters," she said.


Embedded image permalink

Marine biologist collecting water samples looks over: "That poor sea lion really puts it all into perspective": image via Javier Panzar @jpanzar, 21 May 2015

Oil spill on Santa Barbara County coast

A sea lion covered in oil struggles on the beach just west of Refugio State Beach, about 100 feet from where the oil spill flowed into the ocean: photo by Bethany Mollenkof / Los Angeles Times, 21 May 2015

With all of the perils and risks involved in living in the littoral, there is, as in all natural communities, a marvelous balance of success and failure. Take success to mean the ability of the individual to reproduce itself and the species to continue. California shares, with other shore-fronting lands, the oldest natural communities on earth. Life which we assume to have begun in ancient seas has changed less in this environment than any other. We look back a hundred million years when we investigate tidal rocks and shores.
 
Elna Bakker: from An Island Called California: An Ecological Introduction to Its Natural Communities, 1971



The sea lion has oil in its eyes and its flippers. Marine biologist here thinks it is a female. #SantaBarbaraOilSpill: image via Javier Panzar @jpanzar, 21 May 2015


Layers of crude oil coat the rocks of Refugio State Beach: photo by Lucy Nicholson / Reuters via Buzzfeed, 22 May 2015

Santa Barbara oil beach

A California sea lion hunts in the oil-contaminated water as a brown pelican flies over, near Refugio State Beach: photo by David McNew via IBT, 21 May 2015

Joseph Ceravolo: Ocean Body

The ocean like an open butterfly
is immobile but still pulsating a little.
The color of the sea
is like a blue butterfly
in the primordial future.
The swell of the body
is like a mammoth butterfly
about to take off from earth
and leave this desert of
a faraway planet
spread before us like a desolate tune.
 
Joseph Ceravolo (1934-1988): Ocean Body, from Millenium Dust, 1982


Santa Barbara oil beach

Globules of oil can be seen in the waves as the tide rises near Refugio State Beach: photo by David McNew via IBT, 21 May 2015

Embedded image permalink

#PlainsAllAmerican in #Texas responsible for spill in #SantaBarbara.
We need to tell Texas to stay out of #California: image via Charlotte Williams @charluv2011, 20 May 2015 

Embedded image permalink

The sea lion went back into the water: image via Javier Panzar @jpanzar, 21 May 2015

crab-oil-spill-getty2.jpg

An oil-covered crab died while trying to crawl on the beach in Santa Barbara County
: photo by David McNew via LAist, 22 May 2015


California mussels and a crab are covered in oil at Refugio state beach on Thursday
: photo by Jae C Hong/AP via the Guardian, 21 May 2015
 


 An octopus spattered in oil lies on Refugio State Beach on Wednesday: photo by Lucy Nicholson / Reuters via Buzzfeed, 22 May 2015
 
Oiled Shrimp in California

A shrimp covered in oil at Refugio State Beach: photo by Lucy Nicholson/Reuters via Newsweek, 21 May 2015
 


 A shrimp is covered in oil on the beach on Wednesday: photo by Lucy Nicholson / Reuters via Buzzfeed, 22 May 2015
 


A fish covered in oil lies on the sand at Refugio State Beach: photo by Lucy Nicholson / Reuters via Buzzfeed, 22 May 2015

Lobster in California Oil Spill

A lobster covered in oil at Refugio State Beach: photo by Lucy Nicholson/Reuters via Newsweek, 21 May 2015
 
Santa Barbara oil beach

A pelican covered in oil flies over an oil slick along the coast of Refugio State Beach: photo by Lucy Nicholson/Reuters via IBT, 21 May 2015

Robinson Jeffers: Phenomena

Great-enough both accepts and subdues; the great frame takes all creatures;
From the greatness of their element they all take beauty.
Gulls; and the dingy freightship lurching south in the eye of a rain-wind;
The airplane dipping over the hill; hawks hovering
The white grass of the headland; cormorants roosting upon the guano-
Whitened skerries; pelicans awind; sea-slime
Shining at night in the wave-stir like drowned men's lanterns; smugglers signaling
A cargo to land; or the old Point Pinos lighthouse
Lawfully winking over dark water; the flight of the twilight herons,
Lonely wings and a cry; or with motor-vibrations
That hum in the rock like a new storm-tone of the ocean's to turn eyes westward
The navy's new-bought Zeppelin going by in the twilight,
Far out seaward; relative only to the evening star and the ocean
It slides into a cloud over Point Lobos.

 
Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962): Phenomena, from Roan Stallion, Tamar, and Other Poems, 1925



Lone pelican. Mount Tamalpais in background. Taken from Bolinas beach.: photo by Yana Edwin Murphy, 24 July 2007

Santa Barbara oil beach

A pelican covered in oil is seen along the coast of Refugio State Beach in Goleta, California: photo by Lucy Nicholson/Reuters via IBT, 21 May 2015

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An oil-covered pelican is loaded into a box by California Fish and Wildlife Department workers Wednesday at Refugio State Beach [photo by David Yamamoto]:
image via Ventura County Star @vcstar, 21 May 2015

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Reeve Woolpert carries an oil-covered pelican he rescued near Refugio State Beach on Wednesday [photo by David Yamamoto]: image via Ventura County Star @vcstar, 21 May 2015

A dead ray, fish, and shellfish lie on Refugio State Beach on Wednesday, May 20, 2015. Photo credit: Jonathan Alcorn/Greenpeace.

A dead ray, fish, and shellfish lie on Refugio State Beach on Wednesday 20 May 2015: photo  by Jonathan Alcorn / Greenpeace. via Mongabay, 21 May 2015

Oil spill on Santa Barbara County coast
Crews use shovels and rakes to pile oil-contaminated sand on the shoreline at Refugio State Beach near Santa Barbara: photo by Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times, 22 May 2015

The spill took place Tuesday afternoon, after a pipeline owned by Plains All American ruptured.

A remote worker noticed abnormalities in the Plains All America pipeline’s flow around 11:30 a.m. Tuesday and shut it off, according to the company. The cause of the rupture won’t be known until the area can be excavated.rews use shovels and rakes to pile oil-contaminated sand on the shoreline at Refugio State Beach near Santa Barbara: photo by Lucy Nicholson / Reuters via Buzzfeed, 22 May 2015

Investor Fact Sheet Map

Placement of Plains All American Pipelines Major Assets: Image via Plains All American Pipelines LP

Oil spill on Santa Barbara County coast

Oil spill on Santa Barbara County coast. Oil-contaminated sand makes an interesting pattern on the shoreline at Refugio State Beach near Santa Barbara: photo by Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times, 22 May 2015