Be Their Voice
Philadelphia, PA
2020, Junior, Poetry & Spoken Word
They can’t talk, you know.
You’ll never see a polar bear march up to the White House, placard in his paw,
Demanding clear water, more ice and all the fish he can eat.
BUT… you might see him, skinny and tired, stagger in to an Alaskan town,
Rummaging for rotting food in the human trash cans.
The penguin might LOOK like a fancy gentleman in his black and white tux,
Dressed up for dinner or a charity ball.
But he can’t tell you he’s homeless since his nesting grounds melted.
Or that his sister drowned in fishing nets last week.
The sea gulls will TRY to tell you. Oh, they’ll squawk and screech their indignation,
About the injustice of tangled lines, hooks, plastic pellets and oil spills.
But the sun-cream slathered tourists on the beach are too busy basking to listen.
The coral WISHES she could speak. She’s the doctor of the sea,
She’d share with us her secret salves for arthritis, her cures for cancer,
And all the remarkable remedies of the reef. Her crimson tipped fingers reach upwards,
Imploring us to listen… but instead we turn the heat up,
And her message fades to white noise.
THEY can’t speak. But WE have words aplenty.
Our voices can tell their terrible tales, sing their sorrowful stories, our protest signs raised high
If we SPEAK UP the world will listen.
Works Cited
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/coral_medicine.html https://www.thedodo.com/the-9-major-threats-to-penguin-694503479.html
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/coral_bleach.html https://seaworld.org/animals/all-about/polar-bear/habitat/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/06/19/starving-polar-bear-wandered-into-city-scavenging-food-hundreds-miles-home/
https://usa.oceana.org/take-action/10-things-you-can-do-save-oceans
Reflection
Reflection
When my older sister said she was going to climate marches last year, she said it was to save the polar bears and ocean life. I had this funny image of a polar bear all dressed up and indignant standing outside the White House with all the kids protesting. That made me think: the ocean creatures can't speak, but what would they say if they could? And how can we help them be heard? I hope when people read my poem they can see the sea life as human, personified, so they can relate to it better and want to help. People can be quite selfish, so it helps if they put themselves in the place of the ones suffering. I have a lot of hope in the fact that kids are now taking a stand and making the adults notice us. It's a long time until I can vote, but I can still go to the protests with my sister this year. We can give the ocean creatures the voice they need and encourage other people to join in and help, too. The climate Hope for the future is that the oceans are not alone anymore.