Protect this precious place

Looking down the beach towards the Queenscliff Pier, 

under which schools of fish sometimes do appear,

I can smell salt and seaweed in my nose

and feel hot grains of sand between my toes. 

I can see seaweed of colours green, red and brown,

some of it tastes like cucumbers, I have found. 

There’s natural treasures like shells and crabs - it’s fantastic, 

but there’s one big downfall here - I’ve found lots of plastic!

Finding plastic here is bad, listen up, I’ll tell you why. 

It pollutes our oceans and causes sea creatures to die. 

We have vulnerable fauna living here that are at threat, 

like the sea birds Hooded Plover, Caspian Tern and Great Egret.

These birds sometimes eat the plastic thinking it is food, 

this makes them sick and it can’t be easily removed.

Sometimes they even come across discarded fishing line,

it wraps around their beaks and necks, they get all entwined.

So clean up all your plastics, don’t leave them on the ground, 

better yet, reduce your use of them so they can’t be found.

This is a most important lesson that we have to teach

so we can protect this precious place, our local beach.