Generation Degradation
Orange, CA
2016, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
There’s stories, there’s shows, there’s movies, there’s books, yet we still are a generation that ceases to look, to look at our issue as it’s presented at hand, to all of us we call this precious earth, our oceans and wetlands.
We have a funny way of showing it, the love that is, for our earth’s oceans, life, and landscapes. Our neglect and ignorance like a Mother’s embrace, the degradation of this earth all due to the human race. The pace of the loss of the face of this planet, have some dignity and respect for this place, what a habit.
The beauty and power of our ocean is truly something unrivaled, its waves flow freely, its depth dives deeply, and its life lives unburdened by the grasp of our economy.
Or at least it did.
See, we are consistently consumed by the beauty of green, a green that is corrosive and corrupt, a green that was created by the beauty around it, so influential and dirty, so powerful and keen. Something everybody wants, and eye for an eye, some green for some green.
But green turned into black and black dumped into blue and the blue gave way to change, change that was not overdue. For the black that was dumped into blue, overwhelmed all the colors that, according to me and you, make up the beauty of this earth, its coral reefs and fish too.
The black in this colorful equation is oil, and the green is the money with which we all toil. So with the green the blue and black, drowning out the colors of the rainbow that the ocean is now starting to lack. We begin to draw ourselves the ultimate image, one of death, loss of beauty, one where the ocean is soon finished.
However the solution is yet held in this painting of destruction, hence why we should try, not give up, and yield to instruction. We cannot give into the green, no matter how overpowering it may seem.
For the screen that the green blinds us with, we can see through, we can fight using our beliefs, our judgment as we dive into the biggest battle of our lives, fighting for the voiceless and against the revenue, for the future of life in our oceans is up to you.
So “do not go silently into the darkness of the night, instead rage, rage against the dying of the light” and fight for what you believe in and what matters most for the death of our oceans is not something to boast.
Just know that it’s up to you, generation degradation, up to you whether or not our oceans can pull through, for it to return to its natural royal blue, and repaint the image that’s already coming true. I do have one piece of advice before I cease to write and I might just share it with you.
Remember generation degradation, though you’re not all one nation, you can come together to form quite a strong foundation. You must give the public an education, that you, you, and you all control what is to come true.
To get others on your side, simply change their point of view, because people’s point of view is what they hold most dear and true and that minute change could affect our world view and finally might allow us to be able to attend to the issue that is now at hand, the destruction of our earth’s oceans and wetlands.
Reflection
Reflection
My inspiration was drawn from Prince Ea and his form of spoken poetry. Poetry is a powerful tool for communicating a message and when you can make it audience-friendly, it can hold even greater power. All you have to do is talk to people. Talking about this issue is the key to fixing our society’s ignorance. Talking about it brings up issues, and talking about those issues bring ideas, and those ideas bring reform, and that reform can start to attend to this issue of our earth and its oceans dying breaths. I didn’t want to bring awareness to just a single form of pollution in our oceans, but bring people back to look at the bigger picture, the picture of harm us humans have on the intimate beauty of the entire ocean. The poem is meant to be read to its audience, as if in conversation, while following the rhythm of the rhyme it carries. I want this to stick in people’s minds, I want this to leave an impact on our society, I want to influence change in our environment, and to do that, all people need to do is talk about it. This issue will be talked about one way or another, the key is to do it before we lose the entirety of what we are fighting to save. Thank you for hosting this competition, for it too is a small step in getting people to talk.