Mirror
South Hamilton, MA
2019, Junior, Poetry & Spoken Word
Darkness swells
Looms over The One
That is oblivious to the silence
Chosen
Not by
God
Or
A ghost
Darkness climbs
The beach
Becomes a shadow
Chosen
Not by
The ground
Or
The sky
Suddenly
The glass wall
Is silent no more
It is like a mirror
The waves shatter and fall
Taking with it
The land
The people
The homes
Families and
Friends once knew
Chosen
By the people
Because they knew
But their actions
Reflected back
In a mirror
Reflection
My poem is a story of a tsunami. Right now, people know the effects of global warming, yet many of us feel no responsibility to change our actions. “Mirror” is about people knowing but not taking action, and then their actions are reflected back on them, the people around them, and the land around them, in the form of a tsunami. In school, we recently discussed the book “The Killing Sea” by Richard Lewis. In the book, a dangerous tsunami comes and kills many people, leaving devastating wreckage. Although incidents like these cannot be stopped, many of them can be prevented because tsunamis are an effect of climate change. If melting polar ice caps is a trigger that can end in tsunamis, then reducing our carbon footprint could help slow down climate change as a whole. What if every new construction in the world was required to have a wind turbine or solar panel on the roof or have a green roof? Imagine the amount of renewable energy that could be creates! Changing the negative effects climate change is having on the earth is done by one person at a time. If everyone does one thing to reduce climate change, that is over 7.5 billion changes for the better. Our world is reflective of the way we live and the way we treat it. Treat the oceans in the way you want to be treated. Be the catalyst for change.