“Swans Island, Maine,” by Amelia Van Driesche, 18, of Burlington
Young Writers Project is a creative online community of teen writers, photographers and artists, which has been based in Vermont since 2006. Each week, VTDigger features the writing and art of young Vermonters who publish their work on youngwritersproject.org, a free, interactive website for 12- to 18-year-olds. To find out more, visit youngwritersproject.org, or contact Executive Director Susan Reid at sreid@youngwritersproject.org and 802-324-9538.
What do you imagine when you picture the ocean? A bright afternoon of sandcastles and surfing, a sunset walk along the beach, the violence of a hurricane? Whatever it may be, none can deny or diminish the sheer, magnificent power that is the sea. After all, “the Ocean is a wild thing,” writes this week’s featured poet, Astrid Longstreth of West Bolton.
The Ocean
Astrid Longstreth, 14, West Bolton
The Ocean is a wild thing.
She rises and falls, crashes and swells.
Out she calls, luring lonely souls to her watery depths and sand-strewn beaches.
Some fear her, some love her, and some have never seen her — but the Ocean answers to the judgment of none, her only master the moon who pulls her tides.
Yes, the Ocean is a wild thing. Dare not harm her, nor her children who swim beneath her waters — the whales surfacing in morning mist, the kaleidoscope of fish flitting in coral reefs. No, dare not harm her, for her anger will punish those who do, her wrath released in storms, tsunamis, floods.
The Ocean is a wild thing, untamed, uncontrolled,
free.
But for those brave enough to venture with her tides, she is also a savior.
For who could resist her seductive voice as it calls out through the cries of gulls and the crash of waves, the scent of her salty perfume?
The Ocean is a wild thing, but on the inside, are not we all? Do we not one day return to the wilderness from whence we came?
And so the Ocean calls to us in her voice of velvet sharpened with the sting of wind, and sometimes she will evoke in us the unbroken, untamed spirit, the knowledge that someday we will all fall back to the forests, the mountains, the sea, the Ocean who is wild but beckons just the same.
And until that time comes, we will return home to our houses longing to fall under her enchantment once again, and her voice will always echo in our heads as we lie down to sleep at night, calling, calling,
calling –
and we shall not forget her.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Young Writers Project: ‘The Ocean’.