Kids Issue 2017: The disappearance

Editor’s note: This essay and artwork are part of Mountain Xpress’ Kids Issue 2017, our annual feature devoted to kids’ art and writing. This year, we asked students to focus on the question “What Matters to Me?”

The savory smell of gravy as it cascades onto your mashed potatoes, saucy looping spaghetti, the crunch of an oatmeal cookie.

Gone.

A crisp apple in the dying sunlight, ice cream melted just enough so that every bite is drowning in a concoction of soupy, sweet perfection, a luscious pancake adorned with fresh berries.

Gone.

If we continue killing off our main pollinators, none of us will be so fortunate. Maybe you think, “Why worry?” Food will be in short supply but rationed very carefully. The chances are there will not be enough to go around for you, your pets, your friends, your parents, your grandparents, your cousins, your siblings and everyone else on the planet. Also, animals need food. They eat plants too, and if they do not, they eat animals who eat plants! Less pollination, less plants, less life. Simple. And it is happening at an alarming rate.

Pesticides and herbicides are a big part of the problem. A honeybee drinks nectar from a poisoned plant, is soon weakened, then killed. Could you please take it to heart not to use these chemicals in your garden? Only buy food labeled “organic.” If we all take this leap, do our best, spread the word, it might not be too late for this amazing and vital endangered species.

— By Zinnia Marquis
The Learning Community School, sixth grade