Once Again
Karachi, Pakistan
2020, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
Mother lifted her head
Pressing a bruised hand to my cheek
Her eyes were ashen
Her skin scarred with the remnants
Of forests long gone
When she spoke, her voice was soft:
“What is your name?”
What does one say to a goddess
With the power to sculpt the land
As a home for the wanderers of starry skies
What does one say to a goddess
With the power to form gentle rocking waves
Cradling the flower of life as it blossoms
What does one say to a goddess
When blood seeps from her charred lungs
Tainted by the breath of human greed and factory-smoke
What does one say to a goddess
When her peaceful ocean tresses scream
Of grief-peppered tornadoes and violent tempests
I looked at the blood lining the crevices of my hands
And said:
“My name is Humanity
I was the one who killed you
And I cannot undo what has been done.”
My words felt like lies as they dripped from my mouth
Tears rolled down my face and pooled in Mother’s fingers
Tempering the rising tides crashing against her shores
Sprouting low ripples in their place
Mother smiled slightly
Saying with a kiss:
“Hoping
Believing
Trying
That is enough for me.”
Her words made me look up
And I saw things I had not seen before
Her scalp sobbed for forgotten kingdoms
But there remained islands of ice
That lined Mother’s head with a crownlike halo
Seas had ensnared her body in a mass of tangled floods
But there remained patches of land
Where homes had been left safe from my touch
Her rotten breath was hot and smelled of drought
But there remained hints of breeze
Which blossomed through her dying gasps
“You cannot undo what has been done
Instead you can craft a future
Free from the strife and misery of the past
Build a world from the remains of my ashes
Build a world from the husks of your tears
Build a world that is better,”
She said, and I smiled back at her
With the promise of fixing what I should have fixed long ago
I resolved to replant the forests I had selfishly cut
And to clear Mother’s breaths of the chaos I had wrought
I resolved to snap the threads of coal and oil tethered round my fingers
And to knit my future from the sun, the wind, the waves instead
I resolved to bury my guilt into Mother’s battle worn soils
And watch the seed of change flower through my bloodied palms
So when Mother asked me one more time:
“What is your name?”
I replied with hope:
“My name is Humanity
I am the one who will save you
And I will give you a chance to live
Once again.”
Reflection
This poem was interesting to write, partially because it was my first time reimagining the Earth as a human being, and partially because I'm not well-versed in the art of poetry writing. When I wrote Humanity for the first time, I wanted to give the sense that mankind was a child, one who made mistakes but was willing to learn from them and grow. One element that I hoped to capture in Humanity was the feeling of childlike helplessness many of us felt when we were younger and had done something wrong that couldn't be reversed, because that helplessness is essentially what the entire human race feels today. The world is slipping through our fingers; Earth has already gone up in flames, and it feels like the damage is irreversible. But through this piece, I learned that all we need to do is to take a step back and think. In this poem, I wanted to capture the essence of climate hope; even though it seems like Humanity has destroyed Mother beyond repair, there are still things left to protect. There are still habitats that are safe, and there are still homes that are thriving, and there are still ways Humanity can get Mother back on her feet. It will take some time, no doubt, but it's still possible, as long as we remember how it feels to be children, and how it feels to possess that dreamlike imagination to look forward to a better future.