Utilomar

I just returned from a trip to Minnesota, where I had been asked by the non-profit Climate Generation to perform for their 10 year anniversary benefit dinner. Initially, I was meant to just speak. But I decided, kind of as a creative challenge, to volunteer to write them a new poem that would connect the issues of climate change in the Marshalls with Minnesota. After talking with their amazing founder, Will Steiger, I realized that our shared passion for working with youth – our belief in them as the most sustainable investment – was one of many ways in which we were connected. So this is the latest poem I’ve been able to write “Utilomar.” You can watch the video of me reciting the piece, as well as read the poem in full, below.

Utilomar

I dreamt of a dead shark

 

we were at a family party

my mother asked me to check the oven and

when I opened it

there it was

massive, gray leathered skin, jaw open

like a metal trap

 

I dreamt of eating a shark

 

When I woke up I met my mother in the hallway

I told her about my dream

how it felt

foreboding

together we went outside and that’s when we found

the world

flooded

 

Water

everywhere

Our neighbors wandering outside

morning daze on their faces

homes inundated, families evacuated

sent to sleep on classroom floors at the nearby elementary school

 

My family is a descendant of the RiPako clan, the Shark clan

known to control the waves with roro, chants

it was said that they turned the tides with the sound of their voice

they sang songs to sharks encircling their canoes, we were connected

to these white tipped slick bodied ancestors carving

through water

we would never

have eaten them

 

In the Marshall Islands I teach Pacific Literature

Together we read the stories our ancestors told around coconut husk fire

 

So what are the legends

we tell ourselves today?

What songs are we throwing into the fire . . . what

are we burning?

And will future generations

recite these stories by heart, hand

over chest?

 

Maybe

In one legend

It’ll start by saying

 

in the beginning

was water

 

water from the sea that flooded our homes our land and now

our only underground reservoir

what we call a fresh water lens

shaped like the front of an eyeball, nestled deep in our coral

feeding on rainwater it watches us, burning and angry it is

vindictive

it poisons us

with salt

leaving us dry

and thirsty

 

Over 6,000 miles away from my island home is the US state of Minnesota

I’ve read that Minnesota, like the Marshalls,

is simultaneously drowning and thirsting

In 2007 24 Minnesota counties received drought designation

While 7 counties were declared flood disasters

In 2012 this time 55 Minnesota counties received drought designation

while 11 counties declared flood emergencies

 

Climate scientists warn of intensified heat

this heat threatens Minnesota’s great North Woods

a forest nearly 12,000 years old

scientists predict the mixed hardwood and conifer forest

will follow glaciers and retreat north by as much as 300 miles in the next century

 

I imagine a hardwood tree ancient

and weary, dry

untangling its roots from the soil

before heaving its tree trunk body

to a new home where it will forever mourn

its roots

 

In this legend,

identify the theme, the moral the message what

have we learned . . .

have we learned

anything?

 

What is the archetype of a monster and a hero?

can they be one and the same?

 

Here’s another story of a tree

On one of our atolls known as Kwajelein

There was said to be a flowering tree at the south end

that grew from the reef itself

a utilomar tree

it was said its magical white petals fell

into the water and bloomed

into flying fish

 

On a lazy Sunday my cousin and I lay side by side

on my aunty’s veranda, sun drying our skin, together

we dreamed an organization dedicated to young people like us

who leapt

blind and joyful

into water

willing ourselves wings

to fly

who dared to dream of a world where both forests and islands

stay rooted

who believe that this world

is worth fighting for

 

I still nightmare of dead leather sharks

 

But I’d rather dream

I’d rather imagine our/next generation

their voices turning the tides

how our underground reservoir will drink in their chants

how they will speak shark songs and fluent fish

how they

will leap

 

petal-soft

beautiful

unafraid

into the water

before blossoming

 

to fly