- Country of Origin: Pakistan
Even the name is sacred.
Was it worth it?
Making all those animals go extinct?
Dinosaurs, Dodos, Rhinoceroses,
How did they ever harm you?
Killing life instead of nourishing it,
Cutting down trees, manufacturing cars,
Smoke streaming from factories.
Tearing down trees, destroying the ozone layer.
Let me just say
You’re all gathering diseases in your basket.
Will you keep up this destruction?
Killing animals, destroying forests.
Do you ever think of the harm to our environment?
The clouds of carbon dioxide,
The growing dangerous greenhouse gases.
Do you even know how we depend on the Amazon?
How it produces oxygen for us to breathe?
How it swallows carbon dioxide?
Forests are critical for our survival,
Producing not just oxygen, but also luscious fruits and berries.
So please.
It depends on you.
How you want to live your life.
Do you want to breathe fresh air?
Do you want to be healthy?
Plant a tree, save a life,
Don’t just kill these innocent creatures,
The choice is yours.
Humanity.
Even the name is sacred.
By Zoya Agha, age 12*
*Published with her family’s permission.
Thank you to Molly Corso for her inspired edits on the piece.
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Zoya Agha
A 12-year-old first time poet, Zoya writes, with her family’s permission: What’s good? My name is Zoya Agha. I am in the seventh grade. I live in Karachi, Pakistan. I’ve always taken an interest in writing poems and stories. I wrote this poem when I realized how our environment is being ruined. People are making factories and killing innocent animals. I wrote this poem as a message urging us to stop this menace and save our planet.
