Alex Ellis 2026
Inspired by New Orleans’ contaminated drinking water crises of 2022 and 2023. Tune is Balfour Road by Rhona Falling.
The plover doesn’t hear, a thousand miles away,
The wildfire in the north, her nest repaired today
When oil coats the marsh, she knows it’s someone’s fault
But Ohio’s in a drought, now the River’s full of salt
Chorus:
Salt marsh salt, fried chicken salt
You turn on the faucet you don’t want no salt
Crab boil salt, Pontchartrain salt
The Gulf is up the River and it’s too much salt
A million people drink the Mississippi’s gifts
When water’s flowing slow then the intake has to shift
Hundred million stopgap, two to go upriver,
Oil keeps burning what’s left of normal weather
Underwater sandcastle, holding back the tide
But the climate keeps changing and there’s nowhere left to hide
Implacable wedge, pushing up here from the sea
If you love New Orleans don’t go working for BP
The rhythm of the storms is nothing new here
In Plaquemines Parish the precarity is near
Most of us survive, most of us rebuild
But who will pay to do it if you leave or you are killed?
Mardi Gras beads add a sparkle to her nest
But the plover’s getting tired and she settles own to rest
The delta will endure the anthropocene’s assault
But her habitat’s wounded and we’re rubbing in the salt