Ocean Hearth
Closter, NJ
2021, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
We unearth the lungs of poor
children in the tsunami’s ribcage,
mouths swollen
as hydrangeas after they drink
from impure wells.
Bits of rheum forming
like mercury glass around their eyes
as mothers tell
their stories to a nameless
savior. When the children no longer
rise with the water, they are no longer
closer to the beginning
than to the end. The heart
of the city is quiet, but the poor still reach
for a voice. We don’t move
for you. We don’t
speak for you. As the wind echoes
the waves, pleas flood
from their mouths. Faraway, justice
skims the surface of water
like ancestral whispers:
we can’t give you
anything. As the hydrangeas begin
to brown, when the water blurs
their faces, we mourn them
only as silhouettes.
Reflection
Reflection
In biology class, I learned how climate change increases rainfall, which makes sea levels rise and some areas more prone to water-related natural disasters. Because these changes have not significantly impacted me, I wanted to research who they impact; this drove me to analyze how environmental justice communities are the most impacted by environmental issues. In this poem, I speak to poor people suffering water contamination from tsunamis and hanging onto hope from mere hydrangeas flowers. The poem conveys the urgency to help these people, who cannot recover from these losses and continue to suffer from negligence; when the poor perish, “we mourn them only as silhouettes.” Creating this piece and learning about the severity of climate change gave me my own sense of autonomy, albeit small. It may only take a few people, like leaders Greta Thunberg and John Paul Jose, and understanding that climate change will eventually hurt us all, to make others also rise. I want to continue portraying these environmental truths, especially for the poor, people of color, and indigenous communities through my writing, and contribute to tackling climate change through studying and sharing sustainable practices and technologies.