kingdoms in rainbow hues (rise and fall)
San Jose, CA
2019, Senior, Creative Writing
part i.
When I grow too cold, or too lost, I remember the ocean teaching me to dance.
I remember the ocean rocking me into a trance, the rolling waves breaking my reflection into pieces and misting my smiling face. At that age, the crust of salt was always on my skin, my hair, coating my tongue, and I opened my eyes wide against the sting.
My older brothers, children themselves at the time, but still so much older in my eyes, had rowed us out to the reef, its glorious colors mixing with the glitter of the fading light over the waves.
Stilling the boat, they jumped out, leaving me to lift and sink with the waves. Reaching my small, soft hand to the water, I laughed, the bright happiness unburdened, joyous.
“My turn, my turn!” I asked, the innocent request bigger than I could dare to ask now.
Who but a child could ask the ocean itself to stop and let her dance?
There was a stillness as I watched the bounce of lights on the surface and listened to the distant crashes on faraway rocks and felt the repetitive dipping of the small boat.
Softly, the words resounded in my heart like the deep twang of a bass string.
Lovely little thing, you cannot see
My eternal heart and endless dance,
Your little mortal life and precious breath
Will end before I even start the steps.
But watch me carefully and you might get
To fill your lungs and soul with sweet music
Just this once and just for you, little one.
The voice was warm, like a song, like the sound of waves breaking into a perfect melody. I didn’t understand then what a gift I’d been given. The ocean let me see the beauty in its dance, let me marvel at the eternal ebb and flow that made up its beating heart, and I drank it in.
part ii.
When I was child, the ocean was my friend, in my mind. The kind of friend that showed me wonders I could hardly dream of, the kind that showed me immeasurable beauty—the kind that taught me to dance. I would spend all my waking hours feeling the spray on my face, floating just above the surface of the most beautiful underwater cities, like Atlantis come to life in front of my very eyes. The reefs, the rolling of the water, the salt on my lips and in my hair—it was caught in my soul.
But the winds were much stronger this time. When I stood with my bare feet on the cold sand, the clouds stared me down, dark and menacing, the sound of the ocean like a reminder that we are nothing, a patch on the land wiped out as easily as breathing.
Everything was getting warmer, colder, stronger—the ocean sent storms like it was testing us, trying to see how much we could withstand.
Not that much more.
With the water lapping at my toes, teasing, warning me to run, to save myself, I tried to hide my fear.
You know how this will end, my little one.
The water’s been here longer than you know,
Longer than your soul could ever be.
So run away and hide, my little dear.
You know what’s coming and what must be done.
Those lovely little reefs will break to pieces, the ocean’s anger tearing at its own heart as it tries to push away the changes.
And when we emerge from the hiding holes and steel walls our human brains created to quell our fears, we will rebuild ourselves, and push more gray clouds into the sky. No one will heal the bleeding heart of the ocean fast enough.
part iii.
When I had grown older, they asked me to forget the ocean, to stay on land and send the younger boys to row out the boats. They told me I was human, two legs not built to swim or float, not made to dance like the ocean waves that had been my best friend.
The ocean did not love me like a human but it loved me like the ocean could love anyone, and I couldn’t keep myself away. There was saltwater in my veins, and it moved with the tide, calling me back. And so I came back, over and over, watching and learning and dancing.
But now, as I breathed in the air, sand and salt and sea met smoke and fire, and I coughed, unable to hold it in. The ocean does not cough. The ocean takes in, holds, cleanses—and her angry bite came all the faster now for having absorbed the poisons.
I saw humanity open its insatiable maw and swallow the colors of the reefs, that bright Atlantis, replacing it with smoked grays to match the new skies.
Somehow it seems that I have grown too old
Or grown too weak to fight the scourge of man.
You’ve turned my deep and beating heart to stone,
Not made to ebb and flow but made to crumble.
Now leave me be and I may dance again
And hide my secrets better from your shores.
Dead and dried, like someone had set a fire on the ocean floor, leaving a broken, crumbling shell of ash. Tears tracked through the skin of my cheek for a world, a home, an injured friend, but I swiped them away, afraid to let them hit the water and have more of humanity taint it, afraid to take more from the ocean than what we had already carved out from its very soul.
part iv.
They say I am old now. I’m not sure if I should believe them. But my limbs ache, my hands tremble, and I still stand by the edge of the water, looking out. The salt on my hair and my skin does not wash off anymore. I will be buried tasting of the ocean.
I have grandsons, children still, and they take me out in a boat over the water, and I revel in the gentle rolling and the glittering lights, and I remember everything.
And suddenly, I have to tell them to stop, because they don’t understand. “It will look better from further away from the sand bar,” they begin to explain, but they don’t understand.
I need to stop here. There’s nothing here anymore.
They put down the anchor and I lean over the edge of the boat to feel the spray on my face, and I reach out to break my reflection with my hands before the waves can do it for me. It makes the white of my hair and the lines of my skin disappear, and I am young again.
I breathe, and ask for forgiveness.
This time, the voice is not deep, or menacing, or angry. It bounces around the chambers of my heart, so, so tired.
Remind me how to dance again, my child.
Reflection
Reflection
I wrote this piece specifically to discuss what global climate change is doing to coral reefs, through coral bleaching from ocean acidification and rising sea temperatures, as well as physical damage as a result of weather conditions growing more severe. I tried to explain all the emotions I felt about these damages in my piece, which personifies the ocean itself, and explores the changes through its relationship with a single character throughout her life. She sees the ocean when she is a child, and it is bright and powerful, teeming with life. However, as she grows older, she sees the effect of human actions on the ocean and her beloved coral reefs. Humanity has spent too long exploiting the ocean and its thriving systems, like its coral reefs. Even those who love the ocean can harm it. The fear, expressed in the final part of the prose piece, is that someday these beautiful systems, so full of life, will disappear due to global climate change and other human action. My empathy and resolve to help make change in the world have only grown with this project. The ocean is a beautiful, important part of this world, and we must do all we can to protect it.