Adam Robinson - 2021

Artist's Statement

My project is titled, “Time.” I decided to use poetry to try and get people to care. It’s hard with any big issue to connect its importance to the general public but the climate crisis seems to be outstandingly hard to do so. Many still fully believe it isn’t real. I think that the gradual nature of it as well as the giant scale contribute majorly to this struggle to even acknowledge the problem. Through the medium of poetry, I hope to form a connection with the reader. To help them feel instead of understand. The issue is so complex and gradual that comprehension takes a lot of time (like a college course dedicated to it for example). Instead of trying to show them again why it matters, I intend to help them feel why it matters.

I have a heavy focus on the idea of time within this poem because that’s truly what the crisis comes down to. We are beyond out of time. I think that this element can be used to create a feeling of urgency in response from the reader, rather than the details of the crisis. Those are absolutely important but should come later down the road. Time and connection are the keys to engagement. Please enjoy and take care of our planet.

Time

It’s easy to look
backwards,
and claim the past makes us special.
It’s easy to feel
that it isn’t our fault that things are wrong.
It’s easy to say,
“There’s still time.”
It’s too easy.

There’s no grandeur in where we stand.
There’s no standing at the brink.
We’re long past that.
Yet we claim to be far from it.

Yet we watch the oceans rise and the ice caps melt.
Yet we watch species go extinct.
Yet we watch the global temperature rise.
Yet we watch our emissions grow.
We see the proof.

It’s hard to stop.
It’s hard to say it’s time.
It’s hard to hold ourselves accountable.
It’s time.

The benefits can not outweigh the costs when there is no future.

It’s time to take back our future.
It’s time to start caring.
It’s time to hold ourselves accountable.
It’s time to deal with the mess that we have.

For we did not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, 
We are just borrowing it from our children.