What Man Hath Put Asunder

The venerable queen of the whole Pacific Ocean
sat upon her Mermaid Throne toying with the notion
that the creatures of her realm should make an application
to create an underwater independent nation

to make their world more stable, in short to try to foil
those who drilled into its depths, searching for more oil
with which to poison both the world above and here below.
Already, she had seen them disturb the status quo

and flood her realm with poison thick and inky black,
destroying things that afterwards they had not put back.
Those creatures of the middle world between the sea and air
thought they were entitled to all that flourished there.

What nature had reined in they nonetheless felt they could alter,
wild horses freed from stables without benefit of halter
or reins or any saddle with which they could control
the forces that once gone unleashed began to take their toll:

gases leaking into air, oil inking up the water,
ice caps at Poles North and South beginning to totter.
There seemed to be no help for it, for humans seemed inept
at maintaining order in a world so loosely kept.

And so the seabirds washed ashore and the dolphins perished
because creatures of the middle world had not maintained and cherished
 that miraculous balance which nature had established
and were loath to change their course ’til all of it had vanished,

thus wiping out all humankind so Nature could start over
reinventing sea creatures, then blossoms, bees and clover
that those feckless humans had sought to kill in vain,
as this time she’d leave humans out of Nature’s chain.

Prompt words today are venerable, mermaid, application, entitle and stable. Gas, help and ink are the words for the TTC challenge #608. Photo of oil slick by Daniel Olah on Unsplash.