Earth Day/Sustainability Stories
1 min
2024 Sustainability Short Story Grand Prize Winner
Athena G. (8th)
Her hometown
Refuge in the warm sand, beating sun
Seagull calls echoing up
Twisting coastal oaks,
As the silver waves sparkled
Her tiny hands gripped Papá's hair,
Riding his sturdy shoulders,
Squeezing through crowds of laughter and fresh fish,
As a lone busker's guitar rang through
The colorful marketplace
Summer ablaze,
The village children splashed in
Low tides
Where blooming corals grew.
Tiny fish swam around her steps,
A garden of underwater iridescence
Innocent and joyful,
Her warm black eyes gleamed,
As she lifted a squirming crab
Her wide, toothy grin had charmed the playful waters
So she couldn't understand,
No matter her efforts,
The rolling waves grew restless,
Icy rain silenced Elders' confused cries,
As the surging torrent stormed homes, schools:
Hunting new shores.
In a rage, the flood had swallowed up the land,
Leaving wooden boards and
Beating hearts
Broken.
All the villagers gathered in a run-down shack
Clothes wet and tattered, they huddled together.
Hungry winter nights
Fed only a morsel of hope.
Only until decades later
Did she learn the two words that had changed her life:
"Climate change"
Did she learn the ocean's rage was caused by
A world of stony hearts,
Corporations counting their profits
Over lives like hers,
Masses walking away
While people and animals cried, stripped of their homes
Now, the girl was a woman.
In a sea of protestors, flooding the streets,
I stood proud in the city square,
As I shared her story, my story.
"What do we want?" My black eyes shone
"Climate action!" The crowd chanted
"When do we want it?"
"Now!" We roared
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