Homeland Bucket of Grass
Decatur, GA
2024, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
The wetlands till over
and my body twitches
shrimp swim in the dead grass stalks and
glossy dragonflies flutter inches
above the cattail
their wings layered
with ghosted images
Forty-Seven apologies
paired and uttered
like prayer
or an oath
a mother
and a father
whispers spreading
inching out like
feet in sand
from beyond the
film.
We can’t forgive you
Our protection has
Raisined, fight once
cured in xylems
Withers and rots
the ocean swells over
and cups our land
we are amputated,
roads pump through
water that
before navigated the
veins and swamps
that called heat
off skin
sweat, leaking
into the streets where
the old hydrangeas
on the eve
weeded past cracks
and in the dawn
the sun burns
our blood
boiled too warm.
I remember
the theft
taken at night and in
buckets
to save
waterlogged we held
a piece of it
inland, domesticated
we thought we were
heroes holding tall
grasses under
hurricanes stalking
their progress until
one day when we
can take them back
the murky water
and the tadpoles
that float
clutching balmy
to the edges
Un-cold and
Innocent
In school buses
We were taken back in waves
To the coast and
Deltas we
Went home
And started
To spread
Reflection
Wetlands are an underrepresented yet vital biome critical to protecting coastline cities like Houston, my hometown, from endangering weather such as hurricanes and providing necessities such as groundwater. For my climate story, I wanted to highlight an experience protecting an area of nature that is very close to my heart and my home. The climate crisis strips southern states of their natural beauty and protection, and as we move deeper into the impending emergency more urgent attention must be paid to the land that gives us the most. Throughout my work, I bounce back and forth in perspectives from my seventh-grade narrator to that of the wetlands that are mostly decaying throughout the southern United States. By doing so, I can envision both the suffering that the climate crisis has created, while simultaneously representing the mass amount of changemakers it has spurred on. This challenge implored me to recount once-forgotten memories and dive deeper into the importance of an often overlooked yet essential piece of our environment. It has incited energy within myself and my care for my community and neighbors to take action not only on a personal level but also on a state or city level to advocate for increased dedication to the preservation and care of the only Earth we were gifted with.