who mothers nature?
Morrow, GA
2024, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
i. complicated minds
Like many of us, nature too had dreams.
Innocent dreams to do good, to make our parents proud.
But dreams are just dreams.
An unreliable thought, that often alters between each passing season.
Every year, a new years resolution is created and broken within the first month.
This is not surprising.
We look around and place blame on the environment built to support us.
The weather is too gloomy to go to the gym.
The sun shines too bright to leave the house.
Dreams were not meant to be achieved, but a passing ray of hope.
So why do we blame nature for not meeting its own?
ii. the first-born child
With no one to look up to for support and guidance,
the firstborn children walk into the world with a false strut of confidence,
for their steps serve as the blueprint for their younger brothers and sisters to follow.
Each step full of trips and falls, but the end results never to disappoint.
Nature was the true firstborn.
Providing us, humans, the plants and animals needed to survive.
Still, as the greedy youngest we are, we continued to take more, depleting it of its sources.
Though nature does not blame us for its depression.
It continues to fill our towns with beautiful snowflakes and sunsets
only for the sole purpose of seeing a smile on our faces.
Building invaluable experiences and memories that can not be replicated by mankind.
Is that not enough for you?
iii. angsty teens
I no longer stand in front of the TV on school mornings,
praying for school to be canceled due to the snow.
The snow does not fall with the same passion as it had before, if at all.
As I grew up, nature appeared to develop with me.
Raging hormones, new lessons, sensitivity to every word spoken.
The harsh radiant beams of the sun are not to punish us,
but rather a side effect of its new profound body.
Change is inevitable.
We say things we do not mean not to be mean but meaning a cry for help.
The rising temperatures, increasing droughts, and melting glaciers are not
“just a phase” that will pass with time.
It is a signal of distress.
Too proud to ask outright, so instead we show signs.
Signs that we hope one person will get.
iv. reconnecting with nature
Harmonious rainfall noises, sunny beach days
Often times when I find myself struggling to get out of my head,
I go for a walk.
Listening to the birds chirping, reminded me of when my mother used to wake me up for school
instead of the beeps of an alarm clock.
Watching the geese swim in the same lake we used to stop by with pieces of bread, of which my
sister would use to lure them close but not too close, afraid they would bite.
Nature is my peace.
v. romanticizing
Every summer is hotter than the ones before.
I sometimes sleep on the floor to get away from the uncomfortable sweaty sheets.
The cold hardwood floor felt like a sense of relief.
Writing this, my back is still stiff and sore from the night before.
But I do not blame nature for its ways.
It is a lovely person inside and out.
Giving away all it had, until it had no more.
Self-destruction in the next corner.
Supporting was its only course.
Neither whining nor complaining, it stood strong waiting for our technology to advance enough
till we were self-sufficient.
Now, it is our turn to return the favor and help mother mother nature.
Reflection
Climate change has always been surrounded by a bad stigma. Through this collection of poems, I hope to bring about an unconventional perspective to climate change, one where new conversations can be held. Utilizing the personification of nature to relatable experiences may produce more engagement as the audience should be able to resonate with nature. Climate change is not an erratic phenomenon, but one accelerated by human activities. Similarly to humans, nature is composed of positive and negative aspects. Climate change is one of the negatives. As we assist each other with solving our issues, we must support nature as well.