Divine Light
New York, NY
2023, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
Climate Hero: Afroz Shah
Act I. darkness
We are mourning the beach.
Buried beneath a colorful shroud
of sticky plastic
coated in seawater, clinging
to our legs like a child hiding from her sins
as the ocean whispers a final prayer.
Every step we take is a funeral march.
Act II. light on the horizon; our hero enters.
New footsteps; hands scraping at the cursed,
kaleidoscopic veil that suffocates the land, worms
into the heartbeat of the tide.
This is quicksand,
a sea of venomous magma seeping into the earth’s core;
can the waves still draw breath with this venom lodged in their throats?
the darkness is peeled away
as the battered sand gasps for air,
those hands a devoted worshipper,
clasped in prayer,
every weight lifted
a verse slipping through clenched teeth.
Interlude I.
The hero, the illuminator, is Afroz Shah.
Names are important, you know,
they determine your destiny,
your purpose,
in the unfathomable,
abrupt flash of light that is light,
and tattoo this fate on your forehead,
carve it on your fingertips
like an inky map bleeding
onto everything it touches.
Afroz means the one that brightens,
like the moon, halo like a golden veil
wrapped tenderly around her head.
Act III. the sky brightens.
The light thunders.
An army of hands crash
against a metallic fortress,
glinting like stars in the sandpaper night sky,
the barrier ripped apart, crumbling, a failing last stand.
Turtles emerge from white crested castles, burrowing,
leaving round, golden suns to dwell
in the newly emancipated earth.
Interlude II.
Legend of the land recites
that the earth is supported on the shoulderblades of four elephants
on the veiny shell of a turtle
standing beneath the world.
A promise,
a prayer,
the turtle vow to remain,
solitary,
beneath the melancholy alchemy of the earth’s core,
the unmapped veins of the ocean floor,
the weight of the world on her shoulders.
Act IV. the final dawn.
We are listening to the beach,
the way the waves erupt,
volcanic,
whispering like a saint lulled into a trance.
The eggs beneath the ground are universes cracking open,
splintering atomic shell everywhere,
each one a new prick of light in a sea
of meteoric stars,
crashing from the sky,
each one a new foundation
for this stilted earth,
our very being clinging to the roughness of their shells,
the grooves that swirl like dancers,
drawing forth
divine light
from empty darkness.
Reflection
I was inspired by this climate hero’s ability to make a difference by doing something that required only a willingness to aid his community. It shows how something as small as picking up garbage can have an incredibly beneficial domino effect. The process made me feel humbled by someone devoted to solving a seemingly unconquerable problem, and my takeaway from my research and message to viewers is that seemingly small actions can make a big difference. This has taught me to make a difference in my community through collective organization, as this is what made this climate hero’s efforts successful. I thought his story spoke to the power of the human spirit and just how much we are able to accomplish. His efforts make me feel hopeful and proud for the future, as he proves that change is possible, if only we're willing to try.