Sophia Ludtke
Newark Academy, ‘20
“At the first workshop, one of my peers said that combating climate change requires ‘not just the changing of minds but the changing of hearts.’ This continued to resonate with me as Climate Speaks progressed. I am now convinced of the powerful role the arts can play in communicating about the climate crisis in a way that will cause people to take notice and listen and leave inspired to take action in their own communities.”
Sophia grew up in Paris and now lives in New Jersey. She’s inspired by both Natirar, a nature preserve by her home, and by the wonders of cities. She’s hopeful that green and urban spaces can sustainably coexist. She traveled to California last year and witnessed the devastation of wildfires there alongside climate action-oriented peers, and she’s excited to be part of another group of incredible young people committed to speaking out against climate change as a collective and powerful youth voice.
Geocentrism
Drowned by your gas-guzzling, heedless sorrow
Smothered by your gulping, chugging, rasping contraptions
Groaning under the relentless weight of your junk
You toss
me
around with gleeful abandon
pitch me into an unmapped abyss
I gasp for air
More than I need
And then you watch
With mournful eyes
As I tumble back down
Into the outstretched arms of
My orbit
Blue swallowing up green
A tangle of grease and soot and rubble and
People
Sweltering asphalt
Charcoaled remains
You crayon a fat tear dribbling down my helpless cheek?
Mother Earth
or so I am called
But when a toxic kiss
grazes your skin
or when a hasty caress
extinguishes your fluorescence
or when a heavy embrace
suffocates you
I won’t cry
Will you?
*
I wrote this poem in 8th grade.
With the question mark at the end hanging in mid air with
apprehension
I won’t cry. Will you? Will you?
Will I?
to personify the earth: cartoon its wrath, crayon its sorrow
as it sets its timberlands ablaze
leaves tree stumps for trash
as it lets the stature of its surface swell
and shakes itself loose of us
cantankerous things
but the earth’s story is safer than our own
*
December of 2018, 1000 climate activists slept in a church
and I wondered
What was God thinking?
to personify God: speculate intentions, sacralize his image
he cries at our loss when we want him to
approves of our stewardship, scowls at our greed as we see fit
but God’s story is safer than our own
how fragile his guardianship
blowing away with the wind
when our faith dissolves
But when a toxic kiss
grazes your skin
or when a hasty caress
extinguishes your fluorescence
or when a heavy embrace
suffocates you
He won’t cry
Will you?
*
Will you? Will I?
A question mark still hanging in mid air with
apprehension
a power outage. a person outage. a prospect outage.
the earth blinks black. but the cosmos blinks back.
