Our Great Barrier Grief
Los Altos, CA
2022, Junior, Poetry & Spoken Word
It’s simply unfair.
We’ve been doing everything for you:
Looking beautiful, providing you fish
Just about anything you wish.
We only provide with good intention;
We even help with storm damage prevention.
And yet you crank up the thermostat—
So what the shell is up with that?
We make you money, protect you, give you meat
And you bleach us white as a sheet.
Oh, good Great Barrier Grief
The insanity is just beyond belief.
We spend 20 million years on all of our reefs,
And it’s all ruined in a time so brief.
It’s like I’m the grandma and you’re the scammer,
Sucking us dry in an obvious manner.
We’re the body and you’re the tapeworm,
Only here to watch the world burn.
It’s like we’re the parents with good intentions,
And you’re the thirty-year-old in the basement
living off of our pensions.
If this continues, we’re good as gone,
Only remembered as a color of crayon.
Our vibrance and spice and everything nice
Will only be left as grays and whites.
This is our plea—
Our Great Barrier Grief.
So please help
And leave us at peace.
Reflection
Since second grade when my teacher brought in a piece of coral in a jar she had gotten from her vacation, I was hooked. I loved them, I read all the books about them, used my precious iPad time watching YouTube videos about them... Now, after understanding the bleaching of coral and other destructive effects of climate change, I’ve decided to use my voice in this competition to shine a light on the issue.