Presenter: Salome Agbaroji, U.S. National Youth Poet Laureate (2023); Student, Harvard University
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00:00So, world leaders today are gathering at COP29 in Azerbaijan to take on the challenges of climate change.
00:07And alongside them are scores of young people who consider our changing climate one of the most urgent issues of their generation.
00:15Millions have rallied around the globe to press for action and hundreds are attending COP.
00:21So, as they meet in Baku, we have a remarkable voice of the future with us here today.
00:26We have Harvard University student Salome Agborogi and she served as the 2023 National Youth Poet Laureate of the United States.
00:34She is joining us to share her poem, Oasis.
00:37It's a powerful vision of paradise where nature and humanity exist in perfect harmony,
00:44where despite a challenging path, the poem suggests that we strive toward this ideal.
00:49Please welcome Salome to the stage.
00:56Have you heard of that place over the horizon that no one has seen but everyone wants to go?
01:13That place they call Oasis, where the water runs clear,
01:18glittering bodies of endless blue, trickling tributaries and springs,
01:23sustainers of life above and below it,
01:27where the hawksbill turtles wade and the bluefin tuna swim without plastic nets around their necks.
01:34Have you heard of the oasis where the oaks and timbers grow green and lush from fertile black beading soil,
01:42branches extending far beyond the imagination, bearing full ripe fruit far as the eyes can see?
01:50The oasis powered by its greens and streams and sunbeams.
01:56And at the end of day, you see a million stars in the obsidian sky, ozone unobstructed by carbon clouds,
02:05nothing but crisp air inhalation and inexplicable peace.
02:11Haven't you seen the kids beaming and full bellied, boys and girls basking in equal opportunity and health,
02:20plucking fruit from the foliage and laughing for its sweetness and abundance and innocence?
02:27Haven't you seen the people satisfied and sustained, harvesting all of what they need but never anymore?
02:36Solidarity is the only language they speak.
02:39And in this language, there are no words for war, pillage and steal.
02:45Only thank you and peace and prosperity.
02:52If you heard of such a place, wouldn't you want to go?
02:57Even if the path was paved with uncertainty, tribulations, bottle caps and mishaps?
03:04And if I told you you were just halfway there, would you fall to your knees amidst the deserted battleground,
03:12the wilting wilderness, the incinerated pages and piles of plastics,
03:17the deafeningly hot weathered rock etching extinction into your waving white flag?
03:25No, we must go for every tree that must grow, for every child that needs books,
03:32for every problem that needs a solution, for every woman that deserves equality.
03:38We must gear up and make it to that beautiful place that no one has seen, but everyone wants to go.
03:48In our lives, on our earth, that place we call Oasis.