Alyson Van Dusen
When we stand before the beach The waves rocking us back and forth Pulling our feet under the sand As if to cradle us and say we’re okay This is safe Right here we meet another world Hidden below our air and clouds Where turtles hide in seaweed And brilliant fish Find sanctuary in the living homes That stretch for the sun And wind to form an homage to the brain Coral colors daringly bright under the blues Where it’s so dark the sun has never known The bottom And organisms create their own light Bioluminescent squid Bioluminescent shrimp And their twinkling stars Shining microorganisms Creating solace in their light Where they float with only the image of themselves And float And float And float And then there’s where we see the ships bellow Over staggering waves While whales make their trip to the surface And remind us they’re there. Sharks’ dorsals peak through the currents Making young eyes Contemplate whether or not it’s a shark or a dolphin Wonder breaks against our assumptions of what lies below With every wave crest and fall And yet when we look close enough We see how she suffers How the change in temperature Causes oceans to warm And leads sharks to the shore Current systems teetering on the edge of disorder – We change the circulation because of our choices And the Earth knows our wrongs And seeks to change our habits Unpredictable weather Hurricane seasons growing Forest fires indestructible Droughts plentiful Yet when she pleads for our help In drastic ways It’s easy to be complacent For us to stay in place And eventually The only power we’ll have is to sit and wait
Alyson is a senior at Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Arts; writing and marine life have been a passion of hers for many years.
- SLV 2023 Table of Contents
- Voices of the Valley – Alphabetic List of Authors
- Sustainable Lehigh Valley booklet
Leave a Reply