rooted in resilience
Chula Vista, CA
2025, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
I walk where my grandmother once walked,
Barefoot on soil, soft and rich,
Hands deep in earth, whispering prayers
To the seeds that promised tomorrow.
She taught me the language of the wind,
The way the river hums in the night,
How trees remember the stories we forget—
Each ring a lesson in patience and time.
Now, my feet pound pavement, not soil,
Trapped in steel and flashing lights,
Breathing air thick with longing,
Where birdsong fights the roar of machines.
Still, the earth calls beneath it all,
A pulse steady under concrete veins,
A promise stitched into my bones—
That nature bends, but never breaks.
Resilience blooms in fractured streets,
Wild roots pushing through the stone,
Vines entwining silent walls,
As children press hope into the earth.
We are not separate, never have been,
Our roots stretch deeper than we know.
What we take, we must return—
A breath for a breath, a life for a life.
So I stand with palms open wide,
Gathering the rain, the sun, the sky,
Carrying forward the voices before me,
Planting a future where we all can rise.
Reflection
My poem honors my departed grandmother and the lessons she taught me about resiliency and the natural world. I wanted to convey how her teachings endure despite the world's reliance on steel and concrete. She taught me to cherish the soil. I selected poetry because it uses strong imagery to convey my feelings of connection, love, and sadness. Writing this essay served as a reminder that, like memory, nature endures hardship. I've discovered via this competition how intimately we are connected to the environment, and my message is to value and preserve what keeps us alive.