[Y]oung Writers Project, an independent nonprofit based in Burlington, engages young people to write and use digital media to express themselves with clarity and power, and to gain confidence and skills for school, the workplace and life.

Each week, VTDigger features a writing submission – an essay, poem, fiction or nonfiction – accompanied by a photo or illustration from Young Writers Project.

YWP publishes about 1,000 students’ work each year here, in newspapers across Vermont, on Vermont Public Radio and in YWP’s monthly digital magazine, The Voice. Since 2006, it has offered young people a place to write, share their photos, art, audio and video, and to explore and connect online at youngwritersproject.org. For more information, please contact Susan Reid at sreid@youngwritersproject.org.

“When I think about my planet, I am afraid,” this week’s Morrisville writer Emily Hess proclaims. Using color to describe Earth’s wellbeing, she contrasts the healthy, vibrant rainbow atmosphere of days gone by with the grayer, bleaker future she sees in store for her own children. Her plea is simple: respect and love our Mother, or she will wither beneath our feet.

The Planet and Her Colors

By Emily Hess, 17

[G]reen,
orange,
blue
and murky gray.
When I think about my planet,
I think about its many colors.
I think about browns and yellows and reds,
and the rarity of purples.
And when I think about my planet
I am afraid.
As I grow up,
my colors become less vivid –
more industrial and smog-like
and polluted and black.
And when I think about my planet
I am afraid.
I want to hold my planet in my hands
and show my future children
the colors of the world.
I want to show them green –
and blue –
and rainbows.
I want to show them
that all their favorite colors
were given to them from the Earth herself,
and I want to show them that they too
can hold the planet in their hands.
When I think about my planet
I am afraid…
because it is mine,
as well as yours,
and hers –
and unfortunately, it is also his.
And when I think about my planet
I am afraid…
because we are far too often taking her
and sticking those natural works of art
in our back pockets,
like handfuls of M&Ms,
only to be left melting and morphing
together until nothing can be salvaged –
not even those colors.
Eventually they’ll all turn
a brown, sticky, gooey mess.
When I think about my planet
I am afraid –
but I am hopeful.
I am hopeful because if we just spend
some more time looking down
into our palms, and accept that
we cannot squeeze too tightly,
we will never have to worry
about looking up and not seeing
that bright, blue sky.