OUR PROMISE
by Jacqueline Moseley
The gentle rays of moonlight illuminate the mottled shores of a quiet coastline. The silvery light is gently kissed by the vast waters which lay before it. The only sound to be heard is the deep, lulling rhythm of lapping waves. Foam lines the shores in indication of the recent and reoccurring frothy tide. The smell of the salty ocean penetrates the thick air, and a soft breeze from the open sea allows a gentle tide to stretch out upon the golden beach.
Beneath the blanket of the night, the sand begins to bubble and crack, as if the earth itself was offering a gift to the sweeping seas.
Impossibly, emerging from the blistering sand appears an ancient creature of unimaginable resilience and strength.
Though they are young, sea turtle hatchlings represent a beautiful symbol of strength embodying thousands of years of evolution, which has presented us with the prehistoric sea turtle.
As more hatchlings emerge from the tumbling cascade of newborns, a crisp breeze brings the smell of the sea, and with it a foreboding wind of caution.
The first turtle begins scurrying towards the rippling water as if drawn by an invisible force. It fights against unimaginable odds simply to get into the waters of the ocean. The silence is broken by the ominous whistling of feathers, and the whispering of talens swiftly carrying a hatchling away along a bumbling wind. Others scuttle towards freedom, leaving little fingerprint like indentations in the soft sand.
Some hatchlings get accepted by the vast tide, and are cast out into the deep unknown. Others are eaten by sea birds, crabs and other predators. In the jumbled days that ensue, the hatchlings swim out to the opean ocean, lathering the sea water into a gentle froth from their urgent whisking through the waves. Over a series of years, these sea turtles will mature to an adult age by eating off of the lush, nutrient rich algae, which lazily floats in the open ocean.
I will not litter. I will do my part.
I will recycle. I will not waste.
After decades of growth, the full grown female turtle returns to the beach she was born in order to lay her first brood of eggs. The night is thick and black, and its warm breath is dulled by the fluorescent glow of busy highways.
The turtle drags herself along the scuffing shores to lay her eggs. Plastics jump up and bite her, intertwine her in their spidery embrace. She gets back up. They tighten around her legs, her shell, her throat. The blinking stars and tumbling wind dim, and the plastics seem to laugh. All sound dampens except for the whispering currents along the rocky shores. The waves seem to acknowledge her efforts, her presence, her death. Suffocating in their muggy embrace, her breath shortens as she tries to stand -
one
​
final
​
time.
The soft moonlight illuminates a shoreline mottled with bottles and colorful wrappers. Whistling in the wind you can hear the crinkling of forgotten plastic, everlasting like guilty confessions and tear-stained broken promises. Soggy lines of plastics trace the shores in indication of the recent and reoccurring tide. And then, once again, the only sound to be heard is the deep, lulling rhythm of lapping waves.
Jacqueline Moseley
8th Grade
For Bowseat Ocean Awareness Contest
West Junior High School & TVMSC
All writing and artwork by
Jacqueline Moseley - 2020