Do We Care?
Westport, CT
2019, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
I want to travel the world to see the product of magic
But I fear I am too late to explore its beauty. Tragic
Isn’t it? How I will only know the pictures that congest
My screens of reefs so pure and colorful, but they can’t attest
To the real disaster that they are white as bleach, with no cure.
Magic can only do so much. The algae couldn’t endure
The water’s increase of temperature, for it is killing
What gives coral 90% of its energy. Filling
The ocean with an achromatic doom, a desolate tomb.
It’s hard to imagine how we let all of this fall apart.
Simply because we didn’t truly appreciate its art.
Occupied, finding cheaper ways that allow us to sustain
A life of impropriety, we just wanted to obtain
The wealth, fundamentally lost in our materialistic
Dreams, the world slips one degree at a time. Unrealistic
About our carbon consumption or our energy function.
Heating everything that’s under the sun, burning our way
Through layers intended to protect us, no amount of pay
Could resurrect us. And the first to suffer? The first to feel
Our actions? The oceans, they are not just there for the appeal.
They absorb a third of our carbon dioxide, where
It reacts with the seawater to make carbonic acid. Do we care?
About how the polar bears are losing ice to stand
As the ice sheets melt, revealing more land
For the sun to heat, causing an imbalance in
Reflectivity that makes more snow melt, it’s wearing thin.
Or how the sea level is rising, how storms are getting closer to the inland.
Soon I’ll be wondering what beaches looked like, wishing I could feel sand
Between my toes, a slight breeze tickling my nose.
They said there is beauty in everything, anything worth a damn.
And yet there’s trash polluting our land.
Chemicals poisoning
Everything from sky to sand.
The glaciers are melting.
Acid rain pelting.
What are we doing?
Instead of viewing
The world for what it is,
Beautiful, our wondrous abris.
Our mistakes were clear.
This didn’t just appear
On its own, we did this.
Oh, how I miss
The way the world once was.
And it was all because
We were still learning to
save the earth but greed did its misdeeds.
We have sunsets imprinted in our minds.
From an earlier, simpler time, we find
The problem stems from ignorance
A different world then before, the difference
Is the disenfranchisement of science.
Because we were too busy, our reliance
On things rather than what we were doing to our oceans.
What we were doing to our air, to our land, going through the motions.
Digging our graves deeper and deeper, the world heating up quicker and quicker.
I think we will miss the days we could breathe in fresh air
And not choke on the smut we made, what a nightmare.
A horror, truly, the way the summers get hotter, do we care?
About how the winters get colder, too much to bear.
If only we took the time, all those years ago, to pursue
The salvation of our earth, if only we knew
That we were fabricating our own demise
Reflection
I wanted to write something that spoke to someone else. I wanted something that was rhythmic and stood out in someone’s head. Doing this piece was really inspiring because it made me really grasp how much trouble we have gotten into in terms of climate change and what it takes to repair our mistakes. I hope that more people will come to realize how important this cause is and that the preservation of our earth should be our top priority. One day I want someone to look back on my poem and think, man this could have happened. I hope the reality that I believe is coming will only be a dystopia we only read about.