A Mother’s Love
Blanchard, OK
2016, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
She has been there since the beginning.
She is the Ocean, full of youth and strength and beauty.
Her only companions are her overbearing brothers,
The Sky and the Land.
The sole female and youngest of the three, she is lonely.
The water maiden wraps the planet in the gentle caress of her pure blue waves,
Like it is a precious possession, but she wishes for more.
She watches, patiently. And she waits.
On one day, no day in particular, it happens.
The Ocean senses something different, something changing, within her.
It is life. The beginning. The first.
Archaea and bacteria swirling around in her depths.
The joy she feels is unmatched by any force imaginable in the universe.
She has created life. She is a mother now. Mother Ocean.
For hundreds of millions of years, she nurtures her children,
Caring for them as they grow and evolve—fins, gills, teeth, vertebrae.
After half a billion years, she decides to share this joy of creation with her brothers.
First with her twin, the Land.
The marine matriarch gathers the bravest of her children,
Encouraging them leave her protective embrace and crawl upon the Land.
She watches from a distance, proudly, as they develop lungs and legs.
The Land takes them in.
The eldest brother, the Sky, is jealous of the gift to his younger sibling,
So Mother Ocean takes her most adventurous children in her palm,
Making them lighter than air and presenting them with wings and feathers.
She throws them upward.
The Sky takes them in.
Another half a billion years passes.
Ice ages, volcanic eruptions, and meteor showers ravage the earth,
But like an ancient Amphitrite, Mother Ocean protects all of her offspring as they develop.
At last, her final Land descendent emerges: the Human.
Bipedal and hairless, the Human is the outcast among its brothers and sisters.
Although it is the runt of the family, it is filled with a powerful potential,
And the oceanic queen loves it no less, if not more, than her other children.
She nurtures this ambitious spirit, this seemingly innate curiosity,
And relishes in the successes of her favored child.
The youngest progeny’s fruitful endeavors invent
Tools, government, society, religion, science, and innovation.
Quickly, the Human becomes a species supposedly superior to its siblings,
But it is not yet satisfied; it wants more.
Soon, the once-innocent interest turns into an advanced hunger for power.
A mother’s delight gives way to newfound concern as
Machinery, technology, transportation, and Plastic come into existence at the hands of the Human.
Mother Ocean screams as these debris are carelessly discarded by her child,
Left to poison her pure waters and clog her unblemished shores.
Her brothers are not exempt from the tyranny,
But the accidental traitor has hurt her the most.
She weeps.
She weeps for the penguin that is strangled by Plastic six-pack rings.
She weeps for the dolphin that chooses an indigestible Plastic bag for lunch.
She weeps for all her children.
Most of all, she weeps for the child that is slowly killing its Mother.
She gave it life; now it is taking hers.
As the Human grows stronger, she grows weaker.
Day by day.
She watches, patiently. And she waits.
What else can she do?
For no matter what the Human does, it will always have its Mother’s Love.
Reflection
Reflection
Starting when I first began to write, I have always been more successful in conveying emotions on paper rather than aloud, and I think that is what poetry is all about: emotions. My poem tells the story of an ancient being, the Ocean, who creates life and nurtures it as it evolves. When humans come into existence, we are hungry for power, and this leads to us inadvertently hurting the environment around us. I hope that after reading my poem, the audience’s minds are full of anger, regret, and sorrow at what we are allowing to happen to our oceans, especially since they are a regular part of our everyday lives. My inspiration for this topic stems from a recent college tour in southern Texas. My family visited the beaches while we were there, and I was absolutely appalled by the amount of trash that littered the shores. I hope this poem puts a new perspective on marine debris and plastic pollution for some people because if we do not do something fast, the damage we have done to our surrounding marine environment may become irreversible.