Congratulations to Shuchen in Year 8 for winning this year's National Poetry Day competition! The poem builds towards two powerful and beautiful final lines. There were a number of poems which would be worthy of publication in many a poetry magazine; the standard was extremely high. Students explored many facets of Environmental Poetry such as the beauty of the environment, the challenges we face to tackle climate change and the frustration of inaction. Read Shuchen's poem below.
Brushing my bare feet
Like a bed of olive-coloured sea,
Rippling in the slight wind.
Hills and valleys of emerald,
Shaking so tremulously
To the rhythm of distant thunder.
Their tears are of dew,
Pellucid and exquisite,
Weeping under rays of early morning light.
They leave marks of my touch,
Footprints denting the viridescence,
Hands feeling the mahogany-coloured soil.
Ten years on, the path is bare,
Wizened terrain
Underneath a piercing gaze.
And we remember that
The grass wept under a ray,
And now the earth wails under a flame.