Luxuries are Fleeting
Pleasanton, CA
2024, Junior, Poetry & Spoken Word
It’s scorching here in California
The stagnant smoke
Lingering in the air
As fire warnings
And heat wave warnings
Blare silently
Through popups on my screen
I never really made
many connections with nature
But I wonder what it was like
To see the lake your dad
took you to fish and swim in
All dried up
with fish bones
and clam shells
eerily dotting the barren ground
like a graveyard of memories
And the forests
that your mom might have taken you to
To picnic under the shade
Burnt to ashes,
desecrated by wildfires
One of the few major forests left
are sequoias
Strong and permanent,
they say
Fire resistant and impregnable
But how long will they last?
When water is drying up
And fires widespread?
The demand for fuel, ever so high?
The luxuries I enjoy now
Are fleeting
They may become
The ones the future never sees
Unrequited; lost to ashes
Reflection
Reflection
When I started to write my poem, I wanted to speak about the luxuries we have, and the ones we are losing. Lakes that my friend's parents used to go to are now dried up. Creeks that had a rich history of fish migrations and wildlife are dried up or overflowing due to drastic changes in temperature. Forests with trees that roamed tall are burnt up, like grasslands that deer once grazed upon. Writing the poem brought a sense of clarity and understanding for the things we take as granted. I strongly felt that we must do everything in our power to preserve the things that may even seem trivial to us, because in future generations, they will only be ghosts of a forgotten past. After reaching out with my community and the nature in my neighborhood more, I have learned an important lesson: nothing in nature is permanent, so don't take the environment you were born in for granted. This message, which I hope the readers of this reflection will internalize as well, is what caused me to stop lingering in my room, procrastinating or being apathetic to the world around me. We are not the purveyors of salvation for nature, but humble peasants. We must work together to prevent climate change because it is not just a loss for nature, but misery for out future world.