Literature – Ecosystemic Magazine

21May

By Rhianna SearleNo Comments

Literature

Monocropped Motherhood

By Rhianna Searle mothers have always been gardeners.Did you know that tomatoes, which love heat,can’t ripen when it’s too hot?Did you know cucumberscan’t bear fruit without bees?Did you know that individualismis a fungus?Did you know we are amonocropping country?Did you know women are degraded,soil.Did you know children are planted in rows?Did you know weirrigate, irrigateand women are flooding? But did you knowwomen could be carbon sinks?Did you know healthy soilis the fabric of our nation?Did you know:women can stitch us togetherwomen are the roots of our society women are the mangroves that protect us from the stormwomen are fertilizer to the economywomen can craft a regenerative world?Did you know parentingcould be like planting athree sisters garden:corn (government)...

15Apr

By Kazi AkterNo Comments

Literature

Just Another PSA

By Kazi Akter Look closely, What do you see? There isn’t much beauty, Left for you and me. While the buildings get bigger and bigger, The earth’s blanket gets thicker and thicker And your mom dad brother and sister They’re getting sicker and sicker. When I look up at the sky to think and ponder, All I see and hear is lighting and thunder, And the glaciers, they’re being torn asunder. How on earth did we let this happen? I wonder. The ones in office they turn a blind eye When there’s something surely awry Even with proof as clear as the skies They sit there and still deny. If we keep accelerating at this rate We’re doomed to a catastrophic fate But I’m telling you, it’s not too late To bring our planet back to its natural state But until then this’ll be just another PSA...

15Apr

By Owen YinglingNo Comments

Literature

Protest

By Owen Yingling If we could see them As they see us Shades of past and Not yet forgotten memories They can only look Unchangeable fragments left And we can only touch Reaching blindly towards a future Yet softly weeping earth I see The vanishing light burnt out How can it have undone so many? Requiem for those to come Can it still bear fruit? Brought up from the depths Of this humbled earth Awoken without a sound No relief from the task Among these tides of bodies As they force their way Ransom paid with their labor Can they make us see? That which will undo so much Dim light flickering Solace from weeping earth

19Mar

By Owen YinglingNo Comments

Literature

Ashen Walls

By Owen Yingling Ash stained walls beneath a savage sky Singed and blackened by dry rain The waters flow yet not a drop Warped metals jut from dying ground Scarred land emptied and broken Beneath the iron sky it waits for rain As the dry thunder cast its shadow The rains flow, yet not a drop to drink Cursed sky and and mindless deep An affliction upon this empty earth Burning rain, the pungent smoke Spreading far beyond the bounds Over the face of the water As they ebb and flow Hope dashed upon the rocks Charred, stripped and torn What it was I cannot say Scorched bark and noumena Found beneath this savage sky Hallowed grass twists, pulls, and yet Neither living nor dead That cruel heap of glowing cinder Son of man beweep its sorrow state Blight upon the world Watch it hiss ...

19Mar

By Audrey WuNo Comments

Literature

We Were Made for Golden Dandelions

By Audrey Wu folded meticulously they leave dimly lit handprint and amber waves turn crimson with the sunrise how does a sun dare to draw its rosy curtain upon a scene where her children lie prostrate when their chests once rose upon her appearance we forget a sun once lit up their faces scintillating until constellations blew out their eyes and in a few months we forget those faces just as we forget the honeyed taste of sun our souls are not nuclear our hearts aren’t meant to cover with clouts we were made for golden dandelions and skies bluer than the grays of bodies molting into soil our landscapes are littered and loitered our cranes have become plastic our pooled-up hope crumpling with promises of “we’ll see each other again.” folded meticulously they leave dimly lit handpri...

19Feb

By Ariana ThorntonNo Comments

Literature

Power of Language

we’re past climate change, we say. call it a climate crisis, an ecological break- down. we’re angry. we’re afraid. we’re gen z: synonymous with social media - coming of age in an age of unrest and upheaval - forging a path in a pandemic. we’re impassioned, we say to panic like your house is on fire – we don’t mince our language but we should be mindful of it. when we appeal to the layperson – do we wish to convey mass extinction, devastation? the media has drawn headlines - scientists have drawn links - every day we have data and catastrophe streaming down screens. disaster is commonplace; panic falls flat. americans grow weary - we disengage, distract. realize this: our words tell a narrative and the futu...

19Feb

By May ChanNo Comments

Literature

Interrelate & The Sunlight

By May Chan Interrelate Free verse The charm of nature is always chanted. Gaze upon how the sun slipped through the clouds, how bright it is shining! But many people take it for granted. Glance at how the fate of animals bowed, how habitats are declining! Individuals think themselves as irrelevant. Watching how the world becomes decadent. Little do they know, One's heart beats together with another, Decisions of one kind affect all others, And everything in this world is vitally interrelated. The Sunlight An ode It creates life on lands. Fabricates enchantress with its hands. It nurtured white and yellow daises, For all the word to see. It’s blazing rays mocked me. Ice was supposed to form on seas. I peered up to the sky, so confused. A winter with high temperature does...

19Feb

By Audrey WuNo Comments

Literature

Pushback

By Audrey Wu What if we were born pushers Off the backs of this mother Whose fingers have rusted green Like those of Lady Liberty Maybe we were meant to become oxymorons Killing what gives us breath And breathing what brings us death We are not falling off the edge of a cliff But dangling our feet like the rim of a swimming pool Or walls where wine sloshes like watered down banter Against the tilting glass Glass now freckled stars beneath our feet Glass that was never rose colored to start with Are we the force that pulls the dawn in From her rosy comfort Do we dare ask her to join the march Leaving shadows behind us Hoping they’ll become imprints Because we are not the exception We are the young And the scared And the hurting And we are asking you to help

4Feb

By Ariana ThorntonNo Comments

Literature

Blessings

E. Ariana ThorntonPhilips Exeter Academy At my childhood home in Ashburn, surroundedby woods and hills, I watch my mom tendher many-hued garden frombehind the kitchen sliding-glass doors.Today, I join her:crouchingclose to the dirt in a floppy pink sun hat, pullingweeds or planting seeds (Chinese okra,parsley, strawberries),relishing the sensation of wet earth in my small palm,the dewy grass dampening my bare feet. SwiftlyI’m reminded of photographs fromNational Geographic Kids Magazine,of breathing soil and centuries-old trees,earthworms my hands arecupped around. I dash aroundour living yard,breathless, laughing,imagining the Earth’s ovenlike core rumblingbeneath my feet—upon my fingertips,the blessings of the atmosphere. Photo by Megan Chopra (Sidwell Friends School)

21Jan

By Sophia StylianosNo Comments

Literature

Selected Poems – Sophia Stylianos

By Sophia Stylianos, Sidwell Friends School “Planets of Yesterday”The intertwined vibrant corals of yesterdayOranges and blues and reds all turning to white gray lifeless lumps at the bottom of the seaAn ocean that is becoming a sea of plasticWater that used to be blue will be gray black with oilAll of this was alive before humans started the destructionFrom the mammoth to the galapagos tortoise there is always somethingAnother species to destroy another land to discover more oil to drillBut soon there will be none leftThere is only one earthwhen are we going to start taking care of it “Tiger Clouds”I can ride a cloudWalk on waterRun to the tigersWith the tigersCatch the tigers raise the tigers become a tigerAll things are living breathing a soul is within themSo when all of us are ...