Reflection

One of the most vivid memories I can recount during school was peering out the window and seeing the sky painted a saturated orange color. At the time, I was shocked and couldn't believe my eyes before quickly learning about the Canadian wildfires that had been transpiring via the news, seeing images of New York City, and my teachers. The smoke had billowed all the way to New York which left us with this smog lifted in the air. It was bewildering to me how vast the wildfire destruction must have been to reach my community in Long Island, NY. Therefore, when seeing that the Ocean Awareness Contest theme was "Tell Your Climate Story," I was instantly gravitated to this moment engraved in my mind because I think the sky being orange was a very conspicuous indicator about the wildfire crisis that had been occurring North of us, and how it not only impacts them, but my community as well. I wrote the poem in a way where you could either read it across to represent my story through my eyes of how I perceived that day, or down each individual column to show the internal thoughts running through my head when I first saw it.