The Oceans’ Dream
Bangalore, India
2018, Junior, Poetry & Spoken Word
The ocean dreams
As it crashes onto sandy beaches
Or erodes away cliff faces
Or smashes into icebergs,
Of a world
Where it has not stranded its own creatures
Upon the filthy shores
Dead and Injured.
But more than anything
Disappointed
That it couldn’t hold its own marine life
And deserted them on the land
Unknowingly,
Unwillingly,
But still did it all the same.
And it has not turned
Into ravenous hurricanes and typhoons
Because of the searing heat
That turned it into masses of rain
That send itself roaring
And screaming
And dancing vigorously against the currents.
And it has not sent its creatures into tumult
Or killed them completely.
And it has not destroyed the coral reefs
It took years to build
Neither are the reefs bleached
Nor starved.
And it has not deprived its creatures of food
By unbalancing the precious ecosystem
That lived within it.
And it has not robbed them of oxygen
The oxygen struggling to reach the depths
But unable to in this ever-growing acidic sea.
And it has not
Turned the waters incredibly warm
Sending its creatures into confusion and puzzlement
Of whether to migrate, or not to
Of whether to mate, or not to.
And it has not gorged itself upon islands
Because of the melting ice caps
That contributed to its incalculability
Allowing itself to devour islands
But where else should it go?
This is what the Ocean dreams of
A world like before.
Reflection
Reflection
My poem tries to communicate how the ocean is a person, and it, like all parents, wants the best for all of its creatures. And the ocean feels responsible for all the damage that it is causing, but really it is because of humans that it finds itself doing these things. I hope that humans realize that the ocean, despite its vastness, is still as fragile as the life it sustains, and we have to try our best to not harm it in order to fully understand its greatness.