Rising Junior Bailey Black wins Ocean Fest poetry contest
Rising Junior Bailey Black won first place in the high school poetry contest at Ocean Fest, a festival that brings the community together through arts, sciences and water play to celebrate the ocean, tell about its threats and inspire people to protect it. Bailey, whose poem is titled "The Ocean's Secret," was one of 11 finalists out of 60 entries, and learned about the contest through Annie Writers, the after school creative writing (S)elective (formerly known as "activities"). Congratulations, Bailey!
The Ocean's Secret
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The Ocean's Secret
The ocean has a secret.
Listen, and you’ll hear it.
The waves giggle over the rocks
like they just know you couldn’t guess.
Seagulls shriek and swirl overhead,
always the gossipers.
Branches contain the wind as it screams
towards the ocean, wanting to be told
The ocean has a secret.
Watch, and you’ll see it.
The rocks pull little crabs under their shadows,
hushing the little busybodies.
The sand draws the water over itself,
covering the prints of things that have passed by.
Seals are drawn back under the water,
their curiosity overcome by their protection of the secret.
The ocean has a secret.
Wait, and you’ll feel it.
There’s fear beneath the surface.
Fear that these sparkling,
mysterious waters and creatures
will take their secret to the grave.
That the world will silence them
with toxins and disease,
never caring enough for the secret
that might come if the world will only wait.
The tides know the secret.
You could ask them,
but they won’t tell you.
They flow back and forth
in an endless rhythm,
unconcerned and wise.
The tides have seen
hundreds of lives pass,
and they know
that hundreds more will,
long before the ocean’s secret
is revealed to the world.
The ocean is constant,
even as everything
else changes.
The tides are unafraid.
The secret of the ocean remains.
