told that, to be beautiful, she must let oil
Swirl,
dark and greasy through her spindrift hair,
lustrous black,
Suffocating.
her stomach is empty, but for plastic shards,
she cannot eat, because food is a sin,
greed, a crime,
for some.
a beautiful barbie, flesh pressed flat
beneath bleached-coral skin,
stark white,
jutting bones protruding from her rib
Cage.
face powdered the same,
arsenic and coal dust
Choking.
lungs drawing tight,
depleted of air, running away with the
Outgoing tide, but forced back in,
towards her tormentors,
again, and again.
No escape.
Isabella Malcolm, Year 8, Parua Bay School
Break the Surface
The reflective sky-blue ocean,
Motionless, tranquil, untouched
But to break the surface
Fall into a world,
So different from our own.
Oh, but to break that surface.
The once murky bland world
Changes in an instant
Pinks purples flashing blues
Sleeping sharks slipping though
the ice blue
Never stopping swimming
My whole world changed
Now I am under the sea
Ritika Joseph, Year 8, Avonhead School
rivers of
cellophane
wind around mountains
mountains of
masks
and microplastics
oceans of
plastic bag jellyfish
of sunken
bottlecap
boats
swirling
swirling
out of
bubble wrap
blankets
and
styrofoam
straws
continents start
to form
pale wispy strands
drifting and floating
soaring and falling
making their way through the world
unrestrained
Claire Travers, Year 8, Avonhead School
glittering shards drifting through the sea
floating with the currents
soft and small
dangerous and unbreakable
turning the ocean hazy and gray
choking the birds and fish
pretty and harmless
deadly and poisonous
disintegrating down into colourful powder
turning sea animals lifeless and limp
bright and useful
discarded and abandoned
Tomo Hudson, Year 8, Avonhead School
A single plastic bottle drifting alone in the sea
It floats around an endless ocean
But then another bottle joins it
And another, and another, they keep coming.
Soon the endless sea is filled, circling endlessly in a gyre.
The sound of the waves are a clatter at bottles.
It will never end.
Danielle De Leo
Evolution of bioluminescence in Anthozoa
Deepwater Horizon
oil residue permeates the water column,
glowing swirls like sedimentary rocks seep into the forgotten, the unseen, the deep
matching the glow of ancient cold light—organisms producing
celestial bodies suspended
in sea and animal forests, in coral gardens and fish nurseries.
It is 2014 on the RV Celtic Explorer,
remotely operated manipulator arms descend on the sea floor, searching
for the emergence of cold light,
the arms scrape single polyp samples of bamboo coral—
tentacles bearing lights of December, little fairies,
fireworks defying the elements,
city lights, sequins sewn into ball gowns.
On board, in darkness, forceps agitate the specimens,
dark-adapted naked eyes search for flashes of light—
intent surveys of night watchmen.
Teams map the morse code of light flickers
onto phylogenetic trees, adjoined to the
trunk of a common bioluminescent ancestor,
timestamped to the Cambrian Explosion.
In the public consciousness, blue light filters through deep blue screens,
we scroll in the darkness of night, brains rewired to never sleep,
insomnia induced by illuminated crustacean courtship displays, glowing bays,
enlightened sea fans like crepe wafer cabbage leaves.
Photophore organs match downwelling light
concealing prey from shadows cast over their bodies,
chameleons of the deep sea, shrimp flick their bioluminescent vomit into
a smudged watercolour haze —
a blended smokescreen for
the forgotten, the unseen, the deep.
