The Rising
New York, NY
2019, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
4:32 a.m.,
Baba and Ma’s whispers float through the doors
Like the breath of a dark incantation
The waters rising
The crops dying
The neighbor’s child drowning.
My ears are hot, throbbing
From hours crammed with knuckled fists
Seeking refuge from the howl of rising waters
Charging against wooden-planked walls
Feet away from swallowing us all
In nature’s cruel milk.
Bitten fingers peel back threadbare curtains
And I am suffocating,
Gasping for cells of life,
Submerged.
The water outside is brackish, opaque
Rising foreboding feet over my head
Thin rivulets of its salivating maw
Sliding through the wall’s cracks.
Two days later,
Baba’s calloused hands push me to his side
As damp emaciated bodies shove by
Panting hot feral breaths.
Words fly around like the dust
Before settling in Ma’s soft wind.
The flooding, the rainfalls, jaan,
Our world is changing;
We are refugees from nature itself.
She exhales a bitter laugh.
I ask if we would ever see home again,
Imagining this endless trek
Of dusty rust roads and parched throats and sobbing children
Ending, somewhere in the distance, in the three of us,
Baba, Ma, and me
Sitting back around the fireplace
In our little wooden hut.
But she shakes her head with remorse
And reality crashes down on me
In the choking black waves
That must be rising over my home’s thatched roof.
Three months later,
My face is smothered in nylon tent fabric
Muffling the acrid odor of sweat and urine
As I await the old Sharmila Siddique,
The woman who promised me answers.
An hour later she hobbles into the space
Sniffs the air, prune skin stretching into a fine maze as she smiles.
You have begun your cycle of womanhood;
You, jaan, now bear the responsibility of an adult,
The age of the future.
Last month, the UN signed the Global Compact for Migration.
We, the victims of the climate, may soon be recognized as refugees.
Our world’s leaders claim they will stop the rainfalls, the flooding.
Yet, one day, other children will have to flee their homes
As the oceans rise until water meets sky
With no tent to protect them,
No ground to caress them each night.
What next, Khala?
Rise.
Rise as soon as you can, and run.
Use your young, new legs,
Shout our planet’s fate to the moon and the skies
The rich and the poor
The animals and the trees
Until the government officials unplug their ears
Open their eyes
And face the rising waves of the future.
Why, Khala?
Mother nature is a karmic force.
We have stripped her of her beauty
And now she pumps the milk
That will send us all rushing below the earth
Down, down, deep.
Unless you, jaan,
You rise, and you teach the people to change her mind.
Reflection
Reflection
Two months ago, my father showed me headlines of Bangladesh’s climate migration crisis. I vividly remember seeing images of starving families walking for miles without food or water, only to end up at cramped refugee camps with inadequate resources. As someone who is half-Bengali, these images hit close to home. After further research, I learned that hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshi people were forced to flee their homes due to a reason that currently bears inadequate attention by the international community: climate change. Climate migration is a newer concept that is growing increasingly pressing. In Bangladesh, climate change has led to flooding, irregularities in rain patterns, and rising sea levels. One image from National Geographic captured my attention: young children crowded in a refugee camp, looking solemnly into the distance. Somehow, the image of sea levels “rising” and the somber gaze of youth melded into a play on words that inspired the title of this piece. While the sea levels and the imminence of an unsustainable future continue to rise, the new generation will, too, rise, bringing new innovation, motivation, and progression. I hope that this piece will not only instill the urgency of climate threats, but empower youth to use their voice, as it is crucial to protect our future. Exploring climate migration has led me to increase my involvement in eco-friendly initiatives in and out of my school, build my knowledge of global climate crises, and moderate a Model UN committee with the topic of reducing ocean pollution.