Eve is one of the co-founders of Permayouth, a global community of youth engaging in permaculture, [pr]activism, eco-regeneration, and humanitarianism. She was also an active participant of the ReGEN-Nations program. Eve is also a poet who writes and shares her poems related to environmental activism. In this issue of our newsletter, she shares her poem “Melting Snow” which portrays the voice of youth coming together to urge change.
Melting Snow
The living is losing colour…holding onto faded love?
will there be time to rediscover?
Life is a waiting game…
tick tock, tick tock do we want more of the same?
The oceans are heating up like a fever…
And I tell you there’s no room for non-believers
The planet is covered by winds of blue
Not blue as the colour but blue like a sad, old, worn out, shoe
Our beautiful complex planet is hurting, alerting and asserting
Alerting us that new perspectives and actions need reworking
How a single word can set the world turning from one moment into the next
We can’t just sit back lost, fearful and feeling perplexed
We can rewrite a page in our cultural dictionaries
Write a page on change making without quandaries
We can redefine what activism means
Relook at the juggernaut crisis the world is seeing
The world has profoundly changed exponentially
Economically, tech-no-logic-ally, socially and eco-logically
We are making a global movement, making our messages echo
Changing the activism code from when people loved art deco
Activism is not always about ramming boats
Or tying yourself around a tree in trench coats
It’s about finding your own role to play in this critical time
Using your own skill sets to effect change along with a new paradigm
There is a transformation that is happening
It’s happening from an unsuspecting group that is unravelling
Young people, the unique generation is rising
Young people are rising with no compromising
Young people are the largest generation that’s ever existed
There is 3.5 billion of us rising up tight fisted
The UN calls us “the new global power reshaping the world”
We are changing the narrative on the way people see us unfurled
From all around the world forging change in a diversity of ways
Making a global movement inspiring, leading and stepping up to challenges ablaze
There are no borders, no boundaries that stop the activism we do
Changing perceptions and the way we relate to the planetary view
United to leap forward we have more in common than what separates us
We are stronger together, so stop waiting for that fossil fuel guzzling bus
If we have learnt something it is to stop procrastinating
What we do on a daily basis is the biggest threat to our race and its accelerating
The beauty of the situation is that we can change and relate
Kicking ourselves now, so too little is NOT too late
This is our chance to see a shared reality
It’s our chance to declare a stance and a commonality
It’s getting the facts straight that gets us to act and not to wait
Take mother earth into your heart and connect as soul mates
The protection of our future is universal
And it should be anything but controversial
Youth bring insight, a bright light to exciting solutions never tried before
Let feathers perched on our souls and sing a tune of hope to restore
For it is our hope in our soul that resides in our core
To keep rising up, uniting for our earth is totally worth fighting for
For one day I will have grandchildren of my very own
I don’t want to be the one to tell them they will never see snow
About the Poet
Eve Ballard is a young Australian environmental activist and a co-founder of Permayouth, a youth-led community that has come together to make a positive difference in the world. Eve also is a talented eco-poet and shares her poetry at monthly Global Permayouth Festivals and other gatherings where people and leading mentors come together to share ideas on Permaculture,
regenerative, and ecological challenges. Eve lives on a Permaculture property along with her family in the beautiful Noosa Hinterland where she is able to practice Permaculture as a part of her daily life.
