GRADES K-1

Big wave with Trinidad Head in background, in watercolor and crayon
Consume

Consume consume that's all we do
We take and take and don't regret
We need to know what's best at end
Our oceans are at risk today
Because of all the things we toss away.


Robert Becerra
Grade 1, La Puente

GRADES 2-3

Elephant seal pup in watercolor and colored pencil
Waves

Do not stop me waves.
You can't stop me now.
The sun is shining on me.
The sand is so soft.
And it's like a blanket.

I can see the mountains.
They are so beautiful!
Like you! You! You!

You can't stop me now!
I'm like a wave! A wave!
A wave! The sun is shining on me!

The waves are so beautiful!
You can't stop me now waves!
Even if the waves are so high!
You can't stop me now!
I can climb the rocks
And you can't get me!!

You can't stop me now...


Emma Lucchesi
Grade 3, Elk Grove

GRADES 4-6

Painting showing Bixby Bridge in Big Sur from the south

GRADES 7-9

Fish swimming among kelp as a child's hand reaches down from the surface, in watercolor
Last Summer

The transit driver veers around the road,
knocking us from side to side, but
we don't care:
we're just on our phones or
picking at the sticky duct tape
holding the back seat together
~
suddenly, the bus lurches to a stop
our eyes look out:
the fog is creeping onto the beach and
into the sea
~
we grab our boards and
kick up the hot sand as we run
we tiptoe across the shoreline
and into the salty water
~
the waves kiss our faces
and we laugh at our inability to surf
crushing seashells as I walk,
the water climbs up my body
~
one time,
we catch a big one, but
the undertow catches us and
we're sent flying
~
as we rise out of the water
and into the sweltering sun,
I look back into the past
at the sandcastle that the little giggling
boy is crafting with his mother.
I smile.


Will Tolmie
Grade 7, Tiburon

GRADES 10-12

Between

what if people moved like hills
rolling ambling undulating
or like ocean waves

they are hills, are waves
ever-shifting rises
watery knolls
ancient

our ancestors saw the hills
the same way we do
and the oceans looked on our forefathers
as they planted their flags on their peaks

we drove up Highway 1
a summer's weeklong vacation
passed Bixby Creek Bridge
as the light was turning golden

my father used to take road trips with his own
from landlocked Moore
to the shores of Galveston

there are few hills in either city
but many in between
and many in the nationless waves

the hills of my California coast
some made of water
some made of earth
blend seamlessly

like the currents connecting
perpetually through space and time
the Gulf of Mexico
to the Pacific Ocean

like the currents connecting
perpetually through space and time
my father to his father
to me


Elizabeth Nail
Grade 11, Pasadena