sunflowers not suncor,
how do we settle the score?
with 98,000 barrels of oil processed a day –
decaying away,
to my dismay,
another high ozone day,
we are being slowly poisoned while their profits soar,
& their workers’ deaths become unaccounted for.
kurtis williams is just one name,
yet there are so many others that died the same,
all because suncor sees our people & planet as expendable & spendable.
rather than
commendable & defendable.
yet Canadian ceo rich kruger sees it as amendable
to make billions off the blood of the american people,
that’s right these toxins are lethal,
try to hide
from hydrogen sulfide,
when it’s in our air statewide.
sunflowers not suncor,
we are here to make an uproar,
over the ways you continue to explore
how to extract more
& for all the ways we have been ignored.
with 47,000 active oil wells already,
our environmental health is unsteady,
even still it remains rough & ready
to restore.
recoil as we chant:
soil not oil,
soon your riches will spoil,
like a sunflower we will remove its toxins
because that’s our only option
to save that which you have already destroyed –
your heart must be an empty void.
sunflowers not suncor,
make peace not war,
fighting for almost 100 years,
yet what will it take for you to hear
the cries of those most affected?
even still we stand connected.
connected by our trauma,
connected by our pain,
connected through the way capitalism
makes us insane,
& strips us from being humane,
have you no shame?
all the money in the world yet you will never know love,
it’s the kind of wealth that’s far above,
anything that you take,
it’s not something you can fake,
but i hope someday your heart aches
for all that was at stake
when we stood high in our stalk,
& firm as a rock,
shouting:
sunflowers not suncor.
community on earth will be our savior.