The Great Pacific Garbage Patch
Los Altos, CA
2021, Junior, Poetry & Spoken Word
There is an island that is no island,
Drifting on the Pacific’s ebb and flow.
Man-made yet no man can upon it stand,
Microplastics left from decades ago.
Charybdis, a monster of our making,
In the dark of her maw marine life chokes.
A vortex of waste always inhaling,
A nightmare out of legend awoke.
An imminent tide makes the waters churn;
Casual habits have led up to this day.
Trash we cast into the waves has returned,
Chasing convenience has led us astray.
Without action this threat will not abate
Thus now we shall seize control of our fate.
Reflection
In elementary school, I learned about ocean pollution. One of the articles that I researched was about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a huge collection of marine debris in the Pacific Ocean. Warm water from the South Pacific and cold water from the Arctic converge and move a soupy mess of trash and plastic across two patches covering approximately 1.6 million kilometers. I was shocked by this information, and I wanted to convey through my sonnet that although this garbage may not affect us now, it is incredibly harmful to sea life and will be to us in the future. Although the sheer size and amount of debris may seem like a mythical monster straight out of legends and that no individual can possibly defeat it, I believe that everyone, despite their age or differences, can contribute to solving plastic pollution in our oceans.