About Sierra Youth

Photo by / par Barry Stemshorn

Active since 1996, Sierra Youth is the youth branch of the Sierra Club Canada Foundation, with a mission to empower young people to become active community leaders. Through grassroots action, and an anti-oppression approach, Sierra Youth aims to address globalization, consumption, and climate change while acting as a resource for youth concerned about environmental and social justice issues.

This is a poem for the youth of the world, striving in each and every way to protect this home, our earth, for current and future generations.

I hear the voices of my ancestors before me.
Whispers on walls,
a chill in my bones.
I walk down cement covered streets,
holding hands across time and space with a thousand others,
and all who have come before me.

I speak for the land.
I speak for the sea.
I speak for the sun.
I speak for the birds building their nests up high in the great cedar trees.
I stand in solidarity with the keepers of the fire,
and the keepers of the stone.
The keepers of the water,
and the keepers of the home.
I will keep my fire going.
Will you choose to join me?

We are all dancers in the production of this revolution,
each with our own unique part to play.
I am told that I have youthful fervor for the things I love,
with the wisdom and grace of the tides that pull the ocean home to the beach.
My feet land on soiled ground,
blood stained and battered,
through our country’s vicious and colonial history.
My heart is heavy.
I will keep my fire going.

Will you choose to join me?

We have no choice in the matter.
My heart is screaming.
Where will we run when the heat of the sun dominates our lungs?
Where will we hide when the tides swallow the land whole and make a shell out of me?
I have no answers but the curiosity to believe that another destiny is leading us home.
I will keep my fire going.
Will you choose to join me?

Two paths emerge out of the darkness of the night.
One of greed,
and one of great humility.
I will keep my fire going.
Will you choose to join me?

– m

Poem by Micaela Yawney. More of Micaela’s poetry and writing can be found on her website at micaelayawney.com. This poem was written sat before the ocean and a setting sun, on the lands of the Tla-o-qui-aht and Nuu-chah-nulth peoples, also known today as Tofino, B.C.