A Funeral in and for the Ocean
Honolulu, HI
2021, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
In the Ocean
Standing there early in the morning,
I feel the soft sand hug my feet;
A warm welcome to a somber celebration.
As the morning sun begins to peek behind the twin islands,
My family and friends approach the calm water.
Lanikai: a beach once for fun, now for a funeral.
Surfboards dive into the chilly water
With their noses pointed to the horizon.
I ride on the one in the back; the one with the ashes.
My Amah—my paternal grandmother.
Taken by cancer much too soon.
With heavy hearts, we paddle out to sea.
We carefully continue through the gentle waves,
The salty ocean breeze in resistance.
In a circle of interlocked hands and surfboards,
My uncle releases the ashes above the colorful coral reef
As tiny fish awake to a cloud of gray slowly dissipating.
Orange sun rays reflect off the shimmering water
As pink plumeria flower petals float peacefully across the surface—
Gifts from each ohana.
As the circle ceremoniously splashes water into the air,
I begin to say my goodbyes
While the flowers drift into the distance.
After a long moment of prayers in silence,
I say my last goodbye as the waves guide us to shore.
For the Ocean
Standing there early in the morning,
I can’t help but remember my Amah
While the sand, now sick with microplastics, clings to my feet.
As the dying sun escapes behind the twin islands,
I can clearly see the brown smog in the air.
Lanikai: a beach once for a funeral, now a wasteland.
Not a person in sight; driven away by the heaps of trash
And toxic waste—the violent waves and dead fish.
Colorful oil splotches contrast the dark salt water.
The putrid smell of decaying animals and seaweed
Reminds me more of death than
My memory of the funeral so many years ago.
Plastic bags float on the surface like jellyfish,
Decomposing ever so slowly and
Poisoning the poor turtles who eat it.
In the distance, a circle of ghost nets drifts grossly
Across the water, full of turtle shells, fish bones, and trash—
A devastating reminder of humanity’s wrongdoings.
I don’t dare enter the acidic ocean water.
I’ve heard the stories of those who do;
The few who return are never the same.
I can’t help but feel pity for the next generation.
They’ll never know the joy I felt in the ocean—
No swimming, diving, paddling, even walking on the beach.
They’ll never feel the comfort of a funeral in the water—
The flowers, the water, the boards, the beauty.
They’ll never experience our culture—
No surfing, sailing, navigating.
I wish I could go back in time to do something.
Anything.
After a long moment of reflection in silence,
I say goodbye to the beach I once knew.
Reflection
Reflection
In 2014, my grandmother passed away from cancer. She asked that her ashes be spread at her favorite beach, Lanikai—a beach on the east side of O‘ahu, Hawai‘i. Although my family is not Hawaiian, we decided to spread her ashes in a traditional Hawaiian sea burial. As illustrated in the poem, this type of burial includes paddling out to sea on surfboards, spreading the ashes in the center of the circle of interlocked hands, spreading flowers, and splashing water. When writing the poem and remembering my Amah, I was filled with sadness because of how much I miss her. This sadness grew into despair when I conducted research on pollution in the ocean. I didn’t realize how toxic humanity is to the ocean. Our plastic trash, chemicals, pesticides, oil, and other pollutants are killing the ocean and its creatures. As an avid beach-goer, I saw an increase in pollution at the beach firsthand; the biggest being the trash and microplastics at the shoreline. My research led me to write the second half of the poem—a dystopian scene of the worst possible state of the ocean I could imagine. Although this most likely will not be accurate (hopefully), I hope that it serves as a warning/wake-up call that if we continue polluting the ocean, something like the second half of the poem might become a reality and would deprive the next generation of the joyous experiences. From doing this project, I feel inspired to do all that I can to stop oceanic pollution. This includes not using single-use plastics, cleaning up trash at the beach, recycling, and using reef-safe sunscreen.