Our Turtle
Stanford, California
2017, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
The waves, they ebb and flow,
Under the white-bright moonlight glow.
Ethereal.
The sky, so pure, unmarred,
Glowing with a spread of stars.
How small we are.
The girl, she stands alone,
Soaked down from skin to bone
But smiling.
The turtle, grey and smooth,
Dancing through… Wait.
It can’t move.
The turtle, red with blood,
Caked with algae sown with mud –
Lands on her toes.
The wind, a putrid stench.
Vomit, nausea and then a wretch.
A ruined beach stretch.
The turtle, its stomach glints,
A piece of plastic, an intestine.
Who did this?
The plastic, blown with rain,
From a nice park bench to a damp storm drain.
Her fault?
The girl, she runs away
But holds dear what she learns that day.
There’s a world around you.
Her mind speaks: Never again,
Trash belongs in the trash bin.
She makes that change.
The people, in a daytime scene.
Pick up trash to keep the oceans clean.
Heroes.
Reflection
Reflection
I’ve always felt a connection to the ocean, which is one of the reasons I submitted this poem. The other reason is my belief that the oceans are a tragically underrepresented part of environmental activism. Although the oceans do so much for us, we don’t treat them very well. In my poem, I bring up the example of marine waste. I would urge any of my readers to look into the effects of marine waste on wildlife, because some of the images are quite shocking, especially given that this is a problem we could solve easily. If people stopped littering, we would be well on our way to a cleaner ocean. All that’s needed is a little more personal responsibility. So everybody who’s reading this: the next time you see a piece of trash on the ground, I want you to do something very simple. Pick it up.