dear my children
Hanoi, Vietnam
2021, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
dear my children,
let me tell you of a time when my ripple curls
haven’t grown gray of mercury. let me tell you
of a time when my waves were yet to crinkle
with plastics within every crease. let me tell you
of a time when my eyes did not leak tears of oil.
let me tell you how those winds once rocked
your cribs. how those phytoplankton breastfed
you with oxygen. how those cerulean green
water caressed you into its velvet arms. now you taint
the very own amniotic fluid you were born from.
i taught you how to ride your first wave. now you crash
right into my body. but let me show you how the waves
can crash and never break the sand. let me show you
how the waves can rinse your tainted soul. let me show
you how children always come back home.
Reflection
Reflection
Growing up in Hanoi, the capital city of Vietnam where there are hardly any bodies of water, I really treasure my trip to the seas. In fact, sitting alone feeling the sea breeze is my favorite thing on Earth! I once read how phytoplankton (cyanobacteria) were the first organisms to create oxygen, hence bringing life to Earth, and how sea creatures were also the first to exist. I just feel like the ocean is this gentle, generous (because of its vastness!), loving mother figure without whom life would never be the same, yet she is being betrayed by her own human children. This is a letter from mother ocean to her human children, reminding us of how important the ocean is, and how we are destroying it.