The Uniqueness of Earth Bestowed by its Seas
Chico, CA
2016, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
A beacon of life,
A blue marble in the obsidian sea of space
Seas are roaring. Tides are turning.
On the planet called Earth.
Filled to the brim with life
From tallest mountain to deepest sea,
We find ourselves observing its beauty.
The color that separates us from darkness
The void that is space.
Blue is our planet.
Blue is more than half of what we are.
The blue that glints in the sun and turns to salt,
And makes the mightiest stone crumble to sand.
Boats glide like paintbrushes
Their marks fading on the forever moving canvas
On their backs they carry energy for man’s convenience
Energy too dangerous to have and hold.
Bright! The rocking ocean roars
As the blackness bursts into flames
The ship dipping under the border of ocean and air.
Harvested darkness leaking onto the surface, poisoning.
Our blue turns black
Like a bruise, hurting.
The ocean internally bleeding
From its depths comes its life, from its wounds now dead.
The people look at one another in shock
Unwilling to accept the death caused by capitalistic ventures
Their voices sound with panic as if they felt the burn of oil itself
How to cover it up?
A bandage for a wound that cannot heal
A dome, a sponge to soak, bacteria
Time can heal all wounds they say
But aren’t we running out of time?
The fish rise as birds dive.
They soar above, eat, and fall
The poison killing them mercilessly.
A crashing body onto the beach
If not they freeze, unable to keep heat
As the darkness mats their wings.
If whales could cry hues of blue
We could no longer see them as the light could no longer shine through the ocean
They could not see us either
The oil in their eyes serving to blind
The few calves left unable to see their mother
The deprivation of Mother Earth to its child evident.
The new image appears now without censor.
A black marble, eclipsing the larger obsidian sea
Seas are wailing, tides are still
On a planet soaked with ink
Glinting red in sun.
Let us avoid this future.
And think more of life, than of money.
Reflection
Being a resident of California, I know how important water is to the Golden State. The beaches are beautiful and full of life, and the valleys utilize water to produce almonds and other agricultural products. Our cities most abundant in population are based near the ocean, bringing in trade. Without our coast and rivers, we would not be able to prosper as we do now. This is why I believe it is necessary to protect our ocean from oil spills, as places like California would suffer tremendously from it.
To campaign for preventing oil spills, I decided to write a poem showing the devastation oil spills could potentially bring to our world. My goal for this was to make the people reading wonder if they are willing to let others kill our planet’s life, the very thing that makes it unique. Through this research I have realized that this problem does not go away within a month or a year. News coverage is always abundant during the initial incident, but as it continues, the issue is pushed aside and forgotten. We as a people need to realize that less media coverage does not mean the problem has been solved. Oil spills take a long time to clean up and we must all work to prevent the damage already done from spreading. I hope that with this poem, people will take action to preserve the beauty our planet contains within its waters.