Choices
Cape Town, South Africa
2016, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
Indecision splits the features
A choice of two objects, mere metres apart
Selfishness and altruism battle for control
But the one is closer
Black smoke smothers the sky
As bright, reaching flames claim their due
Sweeping across landfills of garbage and refuse
But that is not all to be found
Plastic bottles and old, worn tires
Melt and are consumed alongside discarded food
There isn’t much harm in making more, we say
But we are wrong
Ancient, rusted vessels traverse the great blue
With shimmering rainbows trailing behind,
Refracting the light in waves of soft color
But all that glitters is not gold
Slick, shiny, kaleidoscopic, striking to the eye
The secret to mankind’s greatest creation
It holds the key to bettering all life
But that is not true
Beaches with white sands and halcyon seas
Flourishing bird populations and exotic sea creatures
Must be protected and preserved, we say
But they aren’t
Deadly rainbows coat pure, shining sand
Creatures face extinction in once blue-green depths
Sudden efforts are made to fix our failures
But it’s already too late
The earth, once blue and green
Replaced by a dark and unfamiliar planet
We weep alongside her at the sight
But are our tears real?
Death breeding in her oceans
Destroying all hope and life
It isn’t our fault, we’ve done no wrong
But we are lying
In the end no movement
Found under the waves and foam
There is nothing we could have done
But we’re not sure
A choice to be made once more
One option a ring of green arrows
A promise of a better world
But the other one is closer
Reflection
Reflection
I gave a lot of thought to the subject of my poem before I ever set pen to paper. I grew up in Cape Town, which is a seaside city, and I’ve seen firsthand the results of perlemoen poaching and plastic pollution on our beaches.
Looking out across the water, there is rarely a day when you don’t see huge oil tankers lurking in the distance. In the past, the tankers have been known to flush out the ballast water from their fuel tanks into the ocean, which hurts marine and bird life. My mother used to volunteer for The Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB), and has told me about the penguins who had to be force-fed and rehabilitated after coming into contact with oil. When the penguins groom themselves, they inadvertently consume the crude oil, which poisons them.
I decided I wanted to write a poem that spoke to the issue of oil pollution. I think there is a tendency for businesses and politicians to avoid taking accountability for the environmental damage they cause in pursuit of profit. People are perfectly aware of the consequences of their actions and constantly try to convince themselves that they are not actually to blame. I wanted to depict this inner conflict in my poem entitled “Choices.”