In Our Hands
Rhode Island
2020, Junior, Poetry & Spoken Word
| Her naked hands snatch up a gleaming shard of glass from a graveyard of garbage, hoping to sell it for food, and thinking of her grandma who said, “When I was a child this beach was a vast golden expanse of sand and the ocean was a scraggly line in the distance.” |
A ruby ring sparkles on my mom’s hands as she turns the steering wheel of our car. Time streaks past our windows. We race to the ice cream store. I grab my ice cream. I lick it, turning my back to the ocean that twinkles like a turquoise geode behind us. |
Reflection
My poem was written to show how, depending on the actions we take, we affect our planet's future and the future of other people. It shows three things: the first is that when you drive, you often think about yourself, not the planet, which you are polluting (because using gasoline contributes to the global climate crisis), but when you walk, you are not polluting the planet. Second, the poem contrasts the actions of two people. One person is really poor. The other person is rich and self-centered and leading a life that will harm the poor person's future indirectly. Third, the poem shows that in places like India, where my grandma is from, many people will be hard hit by sea level rise. The ocean is already rising and swallowing coasts there, as the grandma's words show in the poem. I learned through this project that our actions are interrelated, and to cause change you need to be sensitive and thoughtful about the other people on this planet, especially across the world, who might not have a lot or even know what's happening because they may not be able to go to good schools.