Swimming Against the Tide
An aquatic poem
We cannot save the sea — but perhaps oceans might start to heal without humanity.
Pollution spreads dreadfully, ice caps melt daily. Often, I feel we cannot save the sea
until consensus. We see global recovery as piecemeal without humanity
taking responsibility for our past carnage. It seems surreal we cannot save the sea.
Folks mouth slogans ’bout being free although it’s a political spiel, without humanity
caring about what we lose in this backroom deal. We cannot save the sea without humanity.
This poem is a villanelle, which is a French verse with a very specific rhyme/repetition/stanza length. The first five stanzas are three lines each, the last one four. The first and third lines of the first stanza repeat at the end of each following stanza, then form a couplet at the end of the poem.
It’s a hard format to get right and have the poem make sense at all, but it’s great when it works out well.
Hope you enjoyed it! If you like this poem, please feel free to check out my others here:
