Nature's Embrace

Max Azuara
I was ten years old
when the continents came alive.
My friend and I were skipping down the beach,
discarding splotchy footprints in our wake
and avoiding the plastic shards
buried in the sand.
My teeth chattered
and goosebumps blanketed my skin
as our hazy air obscured the sun.
In a show of bravado,
I plunged into the sea.
Hordes of dead fish
chased me out.
Despite my youth,
the world was on its way out.
It needed a tender hand to pull it together.
“Look!” My friend pointed to the coastline.
Like a finger snapping into place,
the shore straightened
in a series of resounding cracks.
“Max!” my mom yelled,
her voice lost in the roaring winds.
Suddenly, a mountain of sand jetted toward me.
I was knocked on my back,
carried upward into the sky—
before I fell,
enveloped in layer after layer
of gritty earth.
Now, I could feel the workings
of Mother Nature.
Her network of tree roots,
her neurons,
came alive to knot our world back together.
Earthen fibers curled around every rocky crag,
tubers plunged down to move heaps of soil,
and with every loving intervention,
Nature reversed the damage
her children had done.
In one last vision,
two hands ripped apart
the sheer curtains shrouding our world.
For the first time,
I saw a blue sky.
Maybe it’s a better world,
I thought, sinking into the earth,
with all of us humans gone.
Max Azuara is a sixteen-year-old student from Denver, Colorado. He has a passion for writing poetry and short stories, often finding inspiration in nature and the cosmos. Max is the creator of the blog "Poetry, Prose, & Popcorn," which is a testament to his dedication to sharing his work with a global community. In his free time, he would like to be found somewhere in the gorgeous Colorado mountains with a book in hand. His favorite novels include Cloud Cuckoo Land, The Great Believers, and Watchmen.

"Misty Beach Dunedin" by _setev is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

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UNDER THE MADNESS
A magazine for teen writers—by teen writers. Under the Madness brings together student editors from across New Hampshire under the mentorship of the state poet laureate to focus on the experiences of teens from around the world. Whether you live in Berlin, NH, or Berlin, Germany—whether you wake up every day in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North or South America—we’re interested in reading you!