Mourn
Hong Kong
2016, Junior, Poetry & Spoken Word
For the seabird poisoned from her very beak,
For her chicks fed with stringent meat lodged with fragments to choke on,
For their ocean colored a despondent gray,
For their seas wilting sustenance and declining affluence,
For the green turtle with her flesh-eating sentence,
For her growth sealed waist-wise by never-sought plastic cuffs, its casual twisting her a misshaped hourglass,
For her habitat deformed and haphazard with drifting debris,
For how Humanity in other ways so powerful has her pupils dyed an opaque shortsighted black,
For from her nature uncleansed and unfiltered,
She empties poison into the seawaters she also depends on,
For her affluence and knowledge stilled and set aside,
For her withering world and her untaken paths,
For her, she has to live in our world, still,
For Neptune, He now carries a plastic crown and wears a styrofoam skin,
For his sapphire eyes clogged with polyethylene bottle caps,
For his once-sonorous voice now weeps and screeches with the ever-digging shrapnel of aluminum and tin,
For his cyclic veins bury littered shards of decay deeper into his pulsing flesh,
For his ocean made sick with toxic currents,
For his blue cloak now stained a mortal shade,
Take note of his daunting oceanic elegy; melodic and melancholy,
Listen to his every earthly breath, each plea unique in desperation,
His tragedy laid bare for unwanting eyes to see,
All mourn,
For us or for him?
Reflection
Reflection
‘Mourn’ is an elegy written to grieve for the effects of plastic pollution and ocean debris. At the deepest level, I explore human society, criticizing the worse nature of “humanity” to alarm readers and instigate discussion.
I use metaphors and analogies, such as “Neptune”, “Humanity”, “the Seabird” and “the green turtle” to represent the suffering we create. “Neptune” is a personification of the ocean, based off the Roman god Neptune of the sea. This reference was particularly important because Neptune ordinarily has strong connotations with strength and might. When I show his slow dying, it serves to emphasize further the deterioration we create. “Humanity” is a personification of the worse sides of our ill-acting nature. “The green turtle” is based off real images of deformed turtles as a result of plastic pollution.
I aim for my image to captures the irreparable damage that this pollution leaves; by keeping it simple, singular and analogous I hope to offer an intuitive and daunting analogy.
“Untaken paths” is an explicit reminder that we can always take another path. This idea of change and opportunity is furthered in my conclusion, that it is necessary for “all” to “mourn” whether it is for a reasonable self-preservation of the world we live in or for the sake of environmental beauty. I present my persona as a spectator because the actions and duties are down to the readers; us. Ultimately, I hope that readers would “mourn”, and take environmental, green and constructive “untaken paths.”