When I Was Young …
College Station, TX
2018, Junior, Poetry & Spoken Word
I still remember the times when I was young.
Beached
On the red sand. On sea and land, humans killed, leaving
Legacies
of corpses. Now, they scrounge a living in a world of their
Own
creation. Wondering, why’d the ocean do this to us?
Yet the key to the killing lies not in the ocean, but something
Less Distant.
Something closer. Something none want to believe.
I still remember the times when I was young.
Until it all changed. We fed the oceans, until they could
Hold
No more. From the oceans vengeance rose. Gas
Splurching
From the depths. Escaping the watery prison. The Greatest
War
Was naught but an afterthought. Disaster spilt across earth like
We
Oiled the oceans. And the cities drowned, the countries engulfed.
Times leaned, battles waged more desperate.
As we Plunged
To Anarchy.
We wasted the fields, razing them in war. To the oceans we
Looked,
yet only carpets of algae remain. The reefs, solemn antlers of stone, a
Fallen
Beast among the green. Just the algae…and the sea urchins,
Bouncing,
munching and crunching the algae. Both temptingling inedible, taunting us. They
Might
Survive. The sea, once a clean green, now glows a sickly yellow pallor. A
Rust Bucket,
One full of chemicals, corroded corpses, and the
Smell Of Rot.
It’s the ocean we try to bend. And that causes our end.
Churchill once said: “Perhaps it’s the end of the beginning.”
I say, “It is the end of the End.”
Reflection
Reflection
I created this poem with a format that resembles the waves. In the lulls of the tide, I put the more “important” words to draw attention to them. This poem is from an old man’s point of view, representing us, the current generation, but placed in a very grim future. I think the reason we don’t act is because we only care once it starts affecting us. However, if we waste the world, we can’t rebuild it. We only have one. The root cause of our failure to act is that we don't even know. If we don’t know, we won’t be able to act. If everyone was educated on this issue, there would be more people to act. And the more people to act, the faster we can stop this. We are on the verge of a cliff, so near to that horrible future - but just the edge, not over, but with no time to stall.