All these trees, the rising seas, are voiceless creatures.
Why are the most vulnerable the most crucial in the act
of living? And why are those surviving alongside these
dying beings so content with seeing the vulnerable year
after year? The trees and seas and animals dying are voicing
their deaths—we, as a society, see them actively dying off.
We still fail, though, to listen to their cries. The idea of our
natures’ systems currently in place being stipped away is for
more than just select groups to acknowledge. The dying of
ecosystems affects all—not just the people who address it, give
voice to the vulnerable. We all see it—so why continuous
division of action? These innocent beings don’t deserve
such selfishness. It is a plea for life we need to address before
our own cry their tears of a once lived, though soon-to-be, nostalgia.
—
Isabel Hoin is an emerging poet and student at Old Dominion University where she is a Perry Morgan fellow in their MFA program. She works at The Muse Writers Center in Norfolk, VA, teaching people of all ages the art of poetry. Her work is featured or is forthcoming in Wild Roof Journal, Chariot Press, The Fool’s World, Loud Coffee Press, and others. She is a Lancaster, PA native and misses the corn fields daily.
