Reece Wright

Grade: 12

Independence High School

Instructor: Jill Wagner

Climate Grief

Writing Portfolio

Climate Grief

Denial: I'll Miss The Fireflies

Denial: Maybe Without Us it Would be Better?

It is a quiet night
illuminated by moonlight
vines and trees and weeds
twist and bend across the street
spreading clean air and new seeds
nothing here is perfect or neat
it is so human in a world without us.

On this night
forty decades ago
we abandoned earth
for we could not slow
ruin's birth
we ran for the stars
landed onto Mars
where the rich worked us
and our bones to dust.

On this night
back onto green and blue
the seas have risen
as science-prophets envisioned
some creatures have thrived
but some have died
our power plants full of nuclear fission
have left the planet humming
to those who will listen.

Do you hear that?
fireflies blush and dream of us
it is a quiet night
for not a human is in sight.

Anger: Adam Named The Animals; Who Will Name Our Sins?

Your apathy is the oceans waves
constant, controlling
threatening to drag me in
and your privilege is the salty air
it's all you know, all you've ever wanted to know.

To you my passion is pollution
my anger is wasteful
my hunger for better is consuming
I dare disturb your untouched universe
I am not holy enough to stay
above your waters
I drown without filling
the ocean with change to cling to.

But what you all fail to see
is that you, being the ocean, and me dirty
is a fantasy lacking any sense of empathy.

You may be an ocean
but you cut open our throats
we spitefully stain your perfect world
with our blood and memory.

Bargaining: Cast Out of the City; Free in the Forest; Prosecuted at the Pyre

I am the hollow-hearted heretic
a whispering wicked witchy woman.
Before; you behold my burning body;
listen to learn about your lack of loyalty
what sin I did, that you sinless all do.
To be in my state, tied to the stakes,
I dared to disturb their universe;
with ruin and revenge and revelation
holding hope of hundreds holding out for
happiness, happiness wholly untouched
by those who tied twigs not to warm but to
raze, those who rule with rotten cruel hearts.
Three times my tale took a turn towards today;
first, I fled famine foraging in the
freed forest to feed my found family;
second, I saw secret spirts sing and spin,
dreary daily dreams dulled in the dawn of
witnessing whimsical wanton worship.
I joined them in their unabashed joy guiding
my faith to follow from fear to kindness.
I grew groves of gathered generous gifts;
finally, I passed my plenty out to
the people, provided for and preserved,
accepted the abstruse arcane, assured
my acclaim to apostasy;
Forevermore a fugitive feared for
nothing if not noble notions of the neighbor,
I burn ablaze with betrayal as your
flames cannot finish me.

Depression: The Color of Devotion is Green

This soil is ill
dry and infected and killing
roots twist, packing it in place.

Grand trees are meant to
withstand with grace
noble enough to protect
its own death sentence.

Dignified trees force land
to stay
as land leeches ruin
into their leaves;
a holy kind of sacrifice.

Cowardly trees plea
with sky and sea
for water to run the dry
and sick away;
the water runs land apart.

Only cruel dirts will smart.

Suffering with no faith
is for those who do not
know how to stay in place.

Acceptance: It is All Alive

Acceptance: It is All Alive
Drifting with intention
toward the next life,
I catch a glimpse of my latest bodies.

Wood, stump circles swirling
into a thousand years of love
a faint discoloration tracing
around when the air
became poisonous.

I drift.

Flesh, bone whisper-fractured
from parent harsh-hold,
guts spilling out onto the pavement
bacteria kissing microplastics.

I drift.

Nitrogen, light traveling at the speed
of Eve's biten-sin; soulless endless apathy
is why Hell is kept right next to where
a black hole was as this body caved in.

I drift.

Finding Meaning: We Glow as We Change

Stay 'til the sunset
it will have hues that exist
only in heaven
the slight chill that arrives
with the suns departure
is the perfect temperature.

Stay 'til the sunset
shadows dance
lengthened to the
distance of our fulfillment
movement reflected
in the black.

Stay 'til the sunset
if the moon is half-risen
watch as the stars coo
at the sun for running around the world
trying to reach it.

Stay 'til the sunset
as once around midday
one of us did not wait
and we sang their name
to the solar powers that be
begging for the sun to set
as we might reunite
with them again.