If we could float in a paper boat,
we’d rock and bob on the turquoise sea,
I would sing for you in Imaginese
so painted whales rise from the deep.
If we could float in a paper boat,
I’d call flotillas of butterflies
to flutter and bumble across the sky
past clouds where dreamy creatures fly.
Could you imagine this was true?
This is what I wish we’d do.
IMAGINE THIS by Jeanette Swan
Artwork: YOU ARE HERE by Hayley Gillespie
Useful, cheap, convenient,
Found everywhere in our seas.
Endless uses.
It floats, swims, travels,
Found in hungry bellies.
Entangles and traps sea life.
Our Sea
Once clean and pristine,
Full of plastic debris,
No longer free of you,
On the sea bottom,
On the sea top,
No escape from you.
Crying Sea
How much longer can the sea put up with you?
Or will the sea just become a murky plastic soup?
Please stop the plastic poisoning,
Before it’s too late.
Stop making useless waste,
That hurts and kills me.
We scrabble over sun
warmed rocks and peer into
rock pools. Small crabs scuttle
sideways, sea anemones wave
and we climb on further- feet slip
in rubber thongs and we glimpse
a squishy sea cucumber, silkworm
soft. In another pool lies a blue starfish.
We race to the ocean to cool our skin,
water so clear we see a large bream flick
its tail and swim off into the depths.
Australian Children’s Poetry 