For the second season of Hurricane Season course, we created artistic piece that illustrates a sharp connections between systems of oppression; in other words environmental problems. We had choice of how our artistic piece was going to look like; the three were conceptual, visual and poetic map or web. I chose to do a poem because it was the only thing I thought that stood out the most considering the issue. Writing a poem was a great fit for this project because I was able to complete it in time and people seemed to understand it which a big deal. An unnatural disaster that I chose was mountains being destroyed. I also had to focus on inner city of the U.S ( West Virginia) and compared it to South Africa’s issue in mountain mining. I did research, at least five reliable sources, to make my poem realistic and strong as possible. Bellow is my poem that inspires me even I wrote it my self.
by the time you read and understand this it will be already too late
late to save the mountains,
the shields that our earth had to suffer for,
all the pain she had to endure,
sacrifices she had to make,
to protect us, and support us
giving us a reason to live for,
a vision and a future to work for,
inspiring the weak and the poor that can’t survive the unfair environment
the injustice of the modern world surprises her;
getting bigger instead of getting smaller
even her cunning eyes couldn’t realize what was happening
until it was almost impossible to stop it.
Mountains destroyed
rivers in the valleys left to die
topsoil blown away by desperate wind
air not breathing freely
trees thirst to death
earth starved until she gives up
no one grateful for what she has to go through
to see us laughing and strong like the oak trees that survived Hurricane katrina
ungrateful for everything she sacrifices for us,
instead we are destroying her,
betraying her, abandoning her, hurting her with our greedy and needy,
hurting ourselves trying to live like gods
lying to ourselves that we are living the way we were destined to
Living the poor and the weak in to the ledge of the mountains
hopeless like a beautiful flower with no one to see it or smell it.
unbelievable,
The rich are blinded by money
their only dream is to have even more
the rich in control of medeas
diseased trustworthy scientists,
turning them into traitors,
the poor blinded by fear
silenced and afraid that their voices won’t change anything
the rich buying mountains from the poor
buying the mountains to only be destroyed and left uncovered
even though covering the mountains to their original state was the condition,
many were left stripped and useless for development
nothing is able to grow freely
corporations able to get away with this madness
the whole of Virginia unable to stop this
the whole world silenced,
knowing the outcome.
our tortured earth abandoned
now nothing she can do to protect us
there’s nothing for her to do to stop the greedy that came to man
it’s too late for her to do anything,
but it’s not too late for us
saving the world and our mother earth is up to us now
we need laws of the earth more than we need laws of a nation right now
silenced people need to rise in order to make this world fair
twisted medias needs to rise against greed
laws needs to change like in South Africa
where people strike for a better world
fight for a just life.
as we rise, we save billions and millions of unheard lives
unseen mammals
unknown lives to come
our children and grandchildren
to live in a place they call our home instead of my home.
Image by: Trigo Fire, Manzano Mts. New Mexico, 2008.