Too Late
Spokane, WA
2019, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
Reflection
Reflection
My inspiration for this poem has a rather mundane origin. It came about one night after dinner as my family and I were doing the dishes. My dad was running the tap needlessly while he washed, and so, having recently learned in my third-grade science class the importance of conserving water, I pointed out to him the wastefulness of his behavior. To my surprise, he replied skeptically, stating that it was "only a little bit of water" that would be recycled soon enough. I immediately retorted with the words of the science lesson I had learned about the importance of every daily choice we make to the health of our environment. I also threw in the lessons specifically regarding climate change, citing pictures our teachers had shown us of bleached coral reefs and devastating forest fires, to emphasize my point about protecting the environment. That day was the day when I learned my dad was a climate change denier. This fact rocked my world, since up until that point, I always believed that people who polluted were the irresponsible villains that did not care about the environment. But there my own father stood, a polluter, in doubt about his significance. And that is when I realized that we ALL let small things slip, namely because we are unwilling to change, or we think our own actions insignificant on the whole. But each of us has a specific and important place, like the words in this poem, in forming the picture of our future. Despite this heavy responsibility, such placement also means that we have the capacity to rearrange ourselves into a better picture… as soon as we realize why we DO need to care.