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12 Sep 2024

Poetic Provocations for Education by a Youth Climate Activist

In this blog post, part of our Provocations for Education from Youth Climate Activism series, youth climate activist Lilian (Lily) Barraclough uses poetry to highlight the seemingly insurmountable challenges that her generation faces in trying to convince the world to take concrete actions against climate change. 

The Burden of Youth

Dreams – A Youth Activist Reflection

Grief for our World

1.5°C

Where is Peace?


The Burden of Youth

by Lilian (Lily) Barraclough

“Youth give us hope”
“Youth are the future”
“The Youth will save us”

What a burden to bear.

We sit in your meetings
We stand in your halls
We speak your words
In the hopes
That you’ll vote
For our survival

We are wise
Beyond our years
Taking the matters of the world
Into our hands,
Our hearts,
And our lives.

What is a childhood,
An adolescence,
A golden age,
When the weight
Of the world
Is on your shoulders

We are told
That we have power
That we give you hope

That we are your future
When your actions
show us
That pipelines
Money
War
And maintaining this empire
Of greed
Of white supremacy
Of cis-hetero-patriarchy
Of ableism
Of domination
Is all that has ever mattered

How are we supposed
To love
To dream
To unite
When we are too exhausted to breathe

My blissful innocence
Left
When I learned
At age 5
That “Idling makes kids sick”
Was not enough
To stop the polluting assault
Of cars
At pick up and drop off

My hope that
Turning off lights
And recycling
Was enough to save the Earth Mother
Dissipated
The first winter we had no snow.

My trust that
The adults would fix it
Collapsed
When I learned that
They had always known

It is not enough
To say you support us
Without taking action of your own
We may be the future
But all of us are alive
In the here and now
And all of us are suffering under the weight of this broken world.
Don’t let us be crushed, with no one to rescue us,

and nothing to live for.

 


Dreams – A Youth Activist Reflection

by Lilian (Lily) Barraclough

I did not realize I could still have dreams, my own aspirations.
I took one for the cause.

I did not realize that I could live a dream,
My own dream,
And still be in it for real.

I did not realize that being a part of a collective dream of liberation,
Included my own dreams.

The future feels endless,
The future feels very small.
Impending Apocalypse,
Dreams of justice.

What is a dream? Is it an aspiration? A spiritual life calling?

Justice, equity, sustainability.
These are necessities.
Dreams are things of wonder,
they should fill you up,
Not tear you down,
Burn you out.
But here I am,
A waning candle in the dark,
with no dreams of my own.

 


Grief for our World 

by Lilian (Lily) Barraclough

I used to feel so much
All the time,
Everywhere,
All at once.

Tears for
The future
The past
All that is
All that was
And all that will be

A dark hole
of terror
Deep inside me

Knots in my gut
Racing thoughts in my head
Guilt coursing through my veins
Hating myself

How can I live freely
In a world of pain,
Of greed
And suffering
Of the Earth Mother,
Of her children,
Of us all
Who suffer under these systems of oppression

Now my heart is in a box
With thick walls
And few windows
Rarely releasing cries
Of anguish
And distress
Tucked away
Waiting for the day
When it can be freed.

 


1.5°C 

by Lilian (Lily) Barraclough

1.5 to stay alive
We chant
and we scream
Hoping that finally those in power will listen
To stay alive,
To survive,
Humanity must keep warming below
1.5

Yet,
Here, now,
In 2024,
The temperatures have risen.

The winter was warm
The fires never stopped
The Storms

And the floods
The ticks
And the bugs
Accelerating at a rate that might well cause our extinction

“The temperatures are rising and so are we”
Yet not fast enough
Greed and power
Injustice and exploitation
Feed the destruction that is our lives

We’ve reached the tipping point
of climate collapse

Despite the rallies,
The die-ins,
The vigils,
The protests,
The meetings,
The speeches,
The stories,
The Movement
Here we are

And we are exhausted
Burnt out
Depressed
Fatally anxious
surrounded by stories of our doom

This is it
We cannot give up
We need to survive
Or go out
Knowing that we did everything we could
Even though it will never be enough

 


Where is Peace?

by Lilian (Lily) Barraclough

What right do I have to
Sit here
At peace
Reading,
Relaxing
When so many of us are
At war.

Apocalypse is here

Climates rage
Wars breakout
Genocide
And famine
Displacement
And loss
Yet here I am,
In my cozy corner of the world
Connected only by
Words on a phone.

Watching the gentle breeze through the trees
And the winter sun bright
On the snow
Knowing that others are watching bombs

The fear,
deep in my soul
Of life
And death
And everything in between
Is nothing compared to
Losing your home
Never to return
Always hungry
Never housed
Blown apart

How do we live with these injustices?
When it feels like all I can do is post stories,
Send letters or money,
And mope
Others think all that matters
is your own happiness and wellbeing
But how can we be happy when not all of us are free?

What hope is there
That in this interconnected,
Globalized world,
That we cannot bond together
And find peace.

 

About the Author: Lilian (Lily) Barraclough has been a climate/environmental activist since the age of five and was awarded one of Starfish Canada’s Top 25 under 25 Environmentalist Awards. She has advocated for climate action and youth involvement in decision making on the local, national, and global scale. Lily is currently a PhD student at the University of Guelph and researches the mental and emotional impacts of climate change on youth climate activists using arts-based poetry methods as well as the intersections of social justice and the climate crisis. Lily is also an aspiring writer and has been writing poetry since she was a child.

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