A mirrored duet for two voices or hemispheres
Voice A (Bright)
In Kenya, kids with solar lamps
read stories past the setting sun,
a lion’s roar, a hero’s map,
a future quietly begun.
Voice B (Dark)
In Gaza, homes are turned to dust,
the lullabies replaced by drones.
A child draws stars in ash and rust,
and dreams of peace in undertones.
Voice A (Bright)
In Iceland, whales are spared the hunt,
the harpoons rest, the sea breathes deep.
Old songs return in ocean grunts,
and silence sings where shadows sleep.
Voice B (Dark)
In the Arctic, ice retreats,
a polar bear adrift, alone.
The warming tide, the melting streets,
a future carved in shrinking stone.
Voice A (Bright)
In India, a forest grows
from hands that once knew only dust.
Each sapling bends, each blossom shows
how roots can rise from broken trust.
Voice B (Dark)
In Sudan, silence hides the screams,
the markets closed, the rivers red.
A mother walks through shattered dreams
to find her child, alive or dead.
Voice A (Bright)
In Brazil, a favela choir
turns rooftops into sacred halls.
Their voices lift like morning fire,
no stage too small, no dream too tall.
Voice B (Dark)
In the Amazon, flames devour
the lungs of Earth, the sacred green.
The trees fall fast, the skies turn sour,
and profit dulls what might have been.
Voice A (Bright)
In Scotland, windmills spin with grace,
the air is clean, the grid is green.
A child draws rainbows in her place
and calls it “home,” not “might-have-been.”
Voice B (Dark)
In Ukraine, the sirens wail,
a lull in war, then fire again.
The fields once gold, now torn and pale,
the harvest lost to steel and pain.
Voice A (Bright)
In every corner, joy takes flight,
a rescued pup, a healed divide,
a stranger’s hand, a street turned bright,
a stubborn hope we cannot hide.
Voice B (Dark)
In every corner, grief takes root,
a vanished vote, a poisoned stream,
a vanished truth, a soldier’s boot,
a broken law, a buried dream.
Together (Spoken in unison or echo)
So let the headlines pause their storm,
and let this verse be what we choose:
a world remade in quiet form,
a daily dose of daring news.
So let the headlines tell their tale,
and let this verse not turn away:
a world in mourning, raw and frail,
still begging for a brighter day.
This line killed me when writing this: "to find her child, alive or dead."
