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Students' writing inspired in an excerpt
from 'Silent Spring', by Rachel Carson
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Students' writing inspired in an excerpt
from 'Silent Spring', by Rachel Carson
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Silent Spring
The Maple
The Maple
The sun was rising in the horizon, and my leaves gleamed in the soft light. Everything was beautiful in this town. The fields, the birds, the streams, the flowers and the trees - I being one of them, a maple tree among many others. I was happy there. The birds flew around me and through my branches, making their nests in my arms, and every year I would see the birth of new lives. The farmers worked and I watched them from afar, as the children played in the roadsides with joyful laughs and smiles.
Then, one day, a white powder came down from the sky, like snow, but it wasn’t as cold or as white as real snow.
The following days were filled with disaster. People of all ages were dying from unknown causes. The fields withered, the birds left their nests in my branches. All the trees became empty and silent. The flowers no longer lived in that town and the streams were now full of dead fish, floating on the surface of small ponds.
The disaster days turned into months, and the small, happy village was now grey and lifeless. Slowly, I started dying too. My leaves fell off and my branches died. The water was poisoned – the soil was contaminated -, and slowly, very slowly, I got weaker and weaker. A year later, I was no longer there, among my fellow trees – but also sickened sisters.
Mariana, 11th 10
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Silent Spring
The Laurel
The Laurel
I used to be a beautiful, eye-catching, marvellous laurel, living in a stunning town right in the heart of America. I had countless friends … even the pines were my friends. All together we used to pose for the visitors, who loved to take family pictures with us. I remember feeling just like a movie star, being photographed by so many paparazzi. Once in a while even painters honoured us by painting our beautiful branches.
But all of a sudden everything changed. Every single person in the town had disappeared. Where had they gone?
My friends were feeling sick and weak. Thank God I was still feeling healthy and so I could give them some support. But that didn’t last. Day after day the situation was getting worse and I started to feel ill, weak and dehydrated. A strange, white powder hovered in the air. It smelled like poison, and I tried to keep all my pores closed. But this task was getting harder because the strange powder was soaking up all the water that was left. The air was becoming unbreathable, and I was starting to despair.
The last thing that I remember is the feeling of gasping for some fresh air.The following days were filled with disaster. People of all ages were dying from unknown causes. The fields withered, the birds left their nests in my branches. All the trees became empty and silent. The flowers no longer lived in that town and the streams were now full of dead fish, floating on the surface of small ponds.
The disaster days turned into months, and the small, happy village was now grey and lifeless. Slowly, I started dying too. My leaves fell off and my branches died. The water was poisoned – the soil was contaminated -, and slowly, very slowly, I got weaker and weaker. A year later, I was no longer there, among my fellow trees – but also sickened sisters.
But all of a sudden everything changed. Every single person in the town had disappeared. Where had they gone?
My friends were feeling sick and weak. Thank God I was still feeling healthy and so I could give them some support. But that didn’t last. Day after day the situation was getting worse and I started to feel ill, weak and dehydrated. A strange, white powder hovered in the air. It smelled like poison, and I tried to keep all my pores closed. But this task was getting harder because the strange powder was soaking up all the water that was left. The air was becoming unbreathable, and I was starting to despair.
The last thing that I remember is the feeling of gasping for some fresh air.The following days were filled with disaster. People of all ages were dying from unknown causes. The fields withered, the birds left their nests in my branches. All the trees became empty and silent. The flowers no longer lived in that town and the streams were now full of dead fish, floating on the surface of small ponds.
The disaster days turned into months, and the small, happy village was now grey and lifeless. Slowly, I started dying too. My leaves fell off and my branches died. The water was poisoned – the soil was contaminated -, and slowly, very slowly, I got weaker and weaker. A year later, I was no longer there, among my fellow trees – but also sickened sisters.
Carolina Santos, 11º10
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Silent Spring
The Apple-tree
I was once a tall and vigorous apple-tree which lived in a vast orchard.
I lived in harmony with my surroundings. A nearby stream provided me with fresh water and the sunshine caressed my leaves. I was also the home to a family of birds that played in my branches, fed on my fruits and delighted me with their singing.
Sadly, everything changed. One day the stream stopped providing me with fresh water; instead, pesticides murdered my roots, so my leaves fell off and my branches dried up. The birds I harboured also died, poisoned by the toxic air.
André Antunes, 11th 2
A Tale of Two Trees
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Deep, deep beyond a veil of dust dancing to the wind’s voice there is a valley as dry as desert sand can be. Within this valley lie two hills opposing each other, separated only by a thin crystal clear lake. Atop those hills stand two almighty trees surrounded by thin patches of short grass. Beneath each tree’s roots there are little caves inhabited by people. These people live mainly of the lake’s water and the tree’s fruits. They dress in long cloaks and during winter they heat themselves by lighting fires with branches that fall from their tree during winter. Also, these people are divided: one group lives beneath the roots of the west most tree while the other occupies the caves beneath the tree in the east. Interaction between the two clans had long been forbidden.
Among the people of the east lived a silver haired boy. Being the only child of his people it would only be natural for him to feel lonely, however as there is nothing more natural than human nature defying its own laws, this boy knew nothing of loneliness.
Every morning he and his kin would go down and collect water and every time he went to collect water he smiled to himself knowing he would get to see her. He would get to see the only child he had ever seen in his life, a blond girl about his age who lived in the west tribe and also went down to collect water every morning.
Every morning they crossed their sights. Every morning their turned their back to each other. Every morning they walked away in opposite directions. Every morning they smiled innocently all the way home. Both children had never said a word to one another. Both children had always lived happily.
One fateful night a large and frightful noise cracked the silence of death itself. On the next morning, as the group of the east came down to collect their water they were shocked. Where there should have been a lake, stood now a bottomless fissure. Trying to figure out it’s deepness they tossed a pebble however, only quite a few minutes later did they hear it splashing against what they presumed to be the now deep away water of what had previously been their lake. After hearing the sound they started to cry as they believed it meant their deaths thinking they had no possible means of reaching the water. And then, a little while later what seemed to be mist started erupting from the fissure and in seeing this, an old man started telling a story about how he had heard that a village in the south had faced extinction due to a drought caused by the appearance of a strange pond from which eerie clouds appeared. From hearing this story men started crying and women started screaming. It was only then that a red haired woman noted that when they first arrived, the west tribe was not there. The group then assumed that meant the others must still have water. And they started to concoct a plan to steal their rival’s water but just then, the same red haired girl said that it was impossible. The fissure was too large. They would never make it unless they had a really long bridge, which they did not. And as fast as a bolt of lightning strikes the earth, a young man suggested cutting their tree down and using it as a bridge. “There is nothing for us on this side” said the young man. “There is no point in having food and shelter if we die from the droughts”, he said adding “the tree will become our bridge to the future” and further explaining “we will kill our enemies and conquer their water, food and shelter”. Hearing this, our little boy shriveled in fear thinking of what would happen to the girl he saw every day except that one.
As the voice of the wind sang nature’s melody the little boy was sitting on the ground in front of the mist covered fissure. From afar he could see his brethren burning the tree’s roots, chopping it off the ground, carrying it in his direction. With inhuman strength and rudimentary mechanisms they, firstly, made their dead tree stand and then, pushed it towards the other side of the invisible crater.
The little boy sat there with his white hairs falling down the face placed in between the arms crossed over his knees, watching as both men and women crossed the newly made bridge armed with bones they retrieved from corpses of animals lying in the desert and spears made from what was left of the tree’s roots. He could think only of her. Only of what would be done to her. Only of what he’d never say to her after wasting so many chances. He could think only of her. Deep within his heart something new emerged. It was loneliness. Loneliness he would feel of losing her. Thus, having set his heart to find and save her, he dived in the mist and crossed the bridge his fellow clansmen created, moved only by his feeble wish to protect that which was most precious to him.
Arriving on the other side, the young boy found it odd that he didn’t manage to meet a single person. He then decided to climb the hill covered in thick smoke. As he got closer and closer to the top, he began hearing what seemed to be screams and cries, and when he finally reached it, he was left perplex. Where there was before a tree, the earth was scratched as if the tree had been plunged off. And besides the open space was his tribe. A few were jumping in a fit of rage, others were crying, some were screaming, all were lost in despair.
The boy quickly understood: the idea his own group had and carefully planned was also the idea their rival clan had. It wasn’t that the other tribe hadn’t gone down the lake to collect water in the morning. They simply went down before the east tribe and had, thus, been absent during the latter’s visit to the crater, because they were chopping off their own tree.
Understanding this, the silver haired boy ran down the hill. However, he could not see beyond the thick mist and could not, therefore, find his clan’s bridge. His tribe had followed him. Screams had followed him. Despair had followed him. And death appeared in the valley for the first time he could remember as some of his colleagues were now jumping into the fissure in an attempt to commit suicide. Their bodies killed by fear and anxiety could be heard splashing against the waters of the depths.
- The young boy closed his eyes and solemn in both appearance and wishes quickly opened them and turning his back to the spectacle of despair, dashed towards the mist. This time, not a single noise or sound was heard coming from the misty precipice.
As the child carefully and slowly advanced on the bridge he looked to his right and he saw it. He saw a beautifully long and blond hair flowing to the wind’s favor. And as the mist started to clear a bit, he saw it, an innocent smile.
Fascinated by what he was seeing, the boy failed to notice his tree had broken apart and he had nowhere to stand on.
João, 11º18
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Forest Poems
The sun is shining high
Splashing gold over the trees
Painting beautiful shadows
All over the ground
The wind is blowing
The trees are dancing
Inside the forest
Inside my mind
The birds are singing
The leaves are swaying
Inside the forest
Inside my heart
The air is cold
The ground is wet
Inside the forest
Inside my body
It’s so cold here
And I can’t hold the trees.
I just close my eyes
And hear the birds’ cries
The leaves swaying around me
The wind holding me tight
I can’t find my way
By Márcia Gomes, Carolina Santos, Inês Ferreira, Amanda Conduto, 11th 10
________________________________________________Out in the forest
There were fireflies circling
Deep in the forest
Where the lost souls hide
Over the frozen lake
There was a man
Wandering in a night of fog
And feeling the cold
On his face
By André Nóbrega, André Paixão, Henrique Diogo, Mariana Nóbrega (11th 10)
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In a forest
Don’t make a sound. Sit back and listen.
The hummingbird’s wings, the squirrel’s noises, the howl of the wolves.
It’s the call of the wild.
There is no wind.
No sun.
Only the dark and the cold.
Suddenly you realise this is where you belong.
You’re walking through the forest and you feel the wind touching you.
You can smell the flowers, and the moisty earth.
Don’t make a sound. Sit back and listen.
The hummingbird’s wings, the squirrel’s noises, the howl of the wolves.
It’s the call of the wild.
You’re amidst the trees. They hug you.
You don’t feel lost any more.
Someone is looking after you.
By Sara Abreu, Maria João Conceição, Camila Dabó, 11th 10
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Standing next to this beautiful tree
Lost in a forest
Peace, wisdom and Purity inside
Such a beautiful tree!
Sweet surrender!
BY Luís Bazenga, Pedro Arraiol, Sara Melim
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Expedition to ‘A Tribute to Trees’ Exhibition
Expedition to ‘A Tribute to Trees’ Exhibition
My Report
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My favourite wooden object
My favourite wooden object
My favourite wooden object was a miniature tree. When I first looked at it, I felt that it was the only thing really important there because it was overflowing with life through its green leaves and its interesting stance, sitting on its own roots. I believe that there’s nothing more important than a living being.
My favourite quote
‘Just like human lungs, trees are the essential beat for life.’
This sentence immediately caught my attention. The way it connects humans and trees is quite simple and truthful. We need trees because they ‘are the essential beat for life’; it’s interesting, as “beat” reminds us of our heart, an organ that keeps us alive by popping our blood. If we kill ‘our heart’, we’ll die; that’s why we need trees to live!
My own writing inspired by an excerpt from a poem:
‘If I were a Bird,
I would fly away from tree to tree,
I could be free
From the noise’
Just hearing Nature’s voice,
Without men’s roar
Why do humans destroy
What we love and enjoy?
Trees are meant to protect
What men do - is it correct?
Bringing down my home
Just to keep them warm!
Can’t they see that trees
Need their heed?
My favourite Drawing
There’s a meadow where there is a tree that is half healthy and half of it is on fire – a flaming red. On the right side, the background is covered in smoke. There’s water dripping on the meadow and the tree is burning. On the left side, the background is blue and the tree has green foliage and a brown trunk.
I feel that this drawing tells us about our behaviour. Trees are colourful and gorgeous living beings (left side), and what we do to them is to cut them down, or burn them, filling the sky with smoke and ashes (right side). We try to stop wildfires, by using water (water on the meadow) and we end up polluting Mother Nature and killing organisms that are needed for the balance of Nature.
This image represents two different paths - life and death. It suggests that we should prevent trees from being cut or burnt down so that we can give trees the chance to live. ‘Why do we have to choose that path, the path of protecting trees?’ you may ask. The reason is simple: they are a part of us. By killing them, we will be killing ourselves.
Nuno Caires, 11th 2
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Continued from The Last Flower, by James Thurber
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Continued from The Last Flower, by James Thurber
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Time went by.
The woman and the man lived all alone, until one day they found each other.
They came from different places, so communication was difficult.
But pretty soon, they started to speak each other’s language.
Together they lived new experiences.
One day, the woman felt attracted to the man and she started to take care of her appearance.
Before long they fell in love with each other and they had children.
One day they found a withered flower, the only flower they had seen in years, and they decided to take care of it.
Years and years went by and soon there were meadows, and forests, and children playing games, and laughter.
The world was full of life and joy again.
People promised they wouldn’t make the same mistakes again.
But soon big cities appeared, and because of work and schedules, life became too stressful and people were exhausted.
They needed something right away - something to help them cook and travel faster.
Soon, electrical appliances, automobiles and other transports were invented.
Presently, people could travel really fast and there was microwavable food which was cooked in an instant.
And there were paper and plastic packages which could be thrown away.
And there were paper and plastic packages which could be thrown away.
Humanity had discovered an easy way of living.
But a colossal amount of waste was being produced...
And forests were vanishing fast. Oil was running out, too.
Pretty soon the world’s fossil resources had been exhausted...
The once bright blue sky had changed into a dull grey, full of toxic gases...
The once bright blue sky had changed into a dull grey, full of toxic gases...
And all animals and plants had died out.
The human race started to travel to other planets for survival.
Nothing was left behind…
Now the face of earth was empty and barren… so they thought.
Years and years went by.
One day, rain started to fall.
Hidden in a remote valley, a tiny flower sprouted and opened its petals.
By Rafael Cassiano, Class 11th 8
