Black Gold

    by Angela Nuzzo

The smell of it is in my lungs,
in my veins, in my memories.
It has been breathed deep
since I was a child
and over the decades it has
soaked into my being.
Back then, the odor was heavy,
hanging in the air like a perfume
only the earth could procure.
It surrounded our house
as the goldenrod did,
mingling its scent
with the flowering fields.
Taking walks up Glycerin Road
would reveal open pools of brown goo,
autumn leaves stuck to the surface,
bugs landing with no hope of escape.
The pipes crisscrossing our hill
were still in use back then,
chugging back and forth, barking
out the language familiar
only in oil country.
Visitors experienced the unique flavor
of the water from our well,
but only in the driest summers
could we taste the deep and murky dregs
being pulled up from the rock pool.
For years now the hills have been silent
and that certain smell has faded.
The rusting tanks
stand abandoned in the fields
and the jacks wait quiet.
There are laws now forcing landowners
to pull pipes and plug old oil wells.
And so, acre by acre,
my thoughts are displaced
and the landscape
of that pungent odor is changed forever.
But I can still sense it lingering,
having been breathed into my heart.