High School First Place Winner

Sarah Tran, 11th Grade
Hamilton High School, Chandler AZ

Sarah's winning entry consisted of a video and a poem, below.

To Lucy

By Sarah Tran

One dozen years ago from a cerulean blue marble,
spiraling into an infinity of stars until daylight – unstoppable.
Like Icarus, she soars on to impossible horizons.
From a still-beating heart and ever-pulsing brain
born from the curiosity and launched out into celestial domain.

Creation of Prometheus, oh how you never cease
to trespass into lands you were not meant to ever see,
to invade the cosmos of its endless mysteries
your unparalleled need to explore the world you were given
could never match your persistence to traverse the forbidden.

And Lucy, from the American continent to Incan gold
to the face of the moon and everything yet to behold
no treasure of exploration has ever been as distinctly human
as your fossilized bones, an ancient footprint and the species’ foundation.

Buried underneath layers of African soil and uncovered,
you are now a pioneering probe for foreign terrains still undiscovered.
So embark and return from your twelve-year long voyage
and detail to us the extraordinary sights along the way of that intergalactic mirage.