I don the right gear
And have nothing to fear
I gaze at the track before me,
Beautiful, long, and free
And shame those who cried—
“On Ellie, with you I confide,
Beware the creatures who dried have died.”
Creatures? There is no such thing.
What harm could they bring?
If they mean insects, well then
I view them as my small friends

I begin to run along the track
The surface sun-scorched and black
And there, suffering and dry
They struggle and writhe
The night before, why the sky weeped
From the ground, they innocently creeped
And now they are hunted by monsters beaked!
O God! Can I not aid
When they are killed by the sun’s blades?
O God! Can I not save
Just one from these cruel rays?

Biography

My name is Ellie Baez, and I am in 10th grade. I love music, and I am on a fine arts scholarship for the flute. I’ve been attending American Heritage since 6th grade and found my love for writing in 7th grade.

What is your main source of inspiration?

Edgar Allan Poe has always been a big source of inspiration for me ever since I read and fell in love with his poem “Annabel Lee.” When I saw that one his poems—“A Dream Within A Dream”— was an option for our parody poem assignment, I jumped at the opportunity.

What motivated you to write this piece, and what is its message?

When writing this piece, I thought back to mid-August when I had to attend band camp. We were preparing to run a mile, but the night before it had rained. All over the track, small earthworms writhed and squirmed helplessly on the ground. Seeing them so distressed broke my heart. I knew they had no idea what was happening; they only knew that they were dying and needed to get back to the soil. I wanted to save them so badly, but I couldn’t without stopping and blocking the whole track. The message of the poem is the inevitability of death and how helpless we are to stop it and also why animals even as small as worms deserve empathy.