Adri Mortensen - 2023

Let us Live

Artist's Statement

For this final project I decided to write a poem highlighting some of my favorite
animals and the challenges they are facing because of human influence. Either through pollution or overconsumption I felt that these animals deserve a voice and I tried my best to represent them. At the end of my poem is a plea to all humankind to be more conscious of our impact on this earth and create an environment where creatures can survive. We have to learn how to cohabitate.

"Let us Live"

I am the raven.
I soar through the smoggy gray clouds in search of your sparkly trash.
I have lived on this Earth since the dawn of creation.
I feed my young what you left on the park bench.
I was once a proud symbol of wisdom.
I lie dead on the side of your highway.
I am the bengal tiger.
I slink round an enclosure too small for my body.
Children on a train point at me and roar.
I lie on a concrete bench in the sun.
A prisoner for your entertainment.
I am the sea turtle.
I glide through the water like a bird in flight.
I’m trying to find a place where the coral still lives.
The plastic drink carrier around my neck chokes me as I swim.
Yet I’m the sticker on your water bottle.
I am the steer.
My life is spent grazing in a field next to a road.
I am burned and branded and counted.
I am chopped to pieces and cooked for your belly.
But your mother has a painting of me on her wall, wearing a wreath of flowers.
I was the woolly mammoth.
I was big and strong and unbeatable.
But when you got hungry I began to disappear.
I hoped I would be the last to be destroyed by you.
I know that I am not.
We are the Earth.
We need each other to thrive.
We cannot do it alone.
I am the raven and I am watching.
Let us live.