WORDS FOR WOES

Dear Matafele Peinem

Dear Matafele Peinem,

You are a seven-month-old

Sunrise ofgummy smiles

You are bald as an egg and bald as the Buddha

You are thighs that are thunder, shrieks that are lightning

So excited for bananas, hugs

And our morning walks along the lagoon

Dear Matafele Peinem,

I want to tell you about that lagoon

That lucid, sleepy lagoon lounging against the sunrise

Men say that one day that lagoon will devour you

They say it will gnaw at the shoreline

Chew at the roots ofyour breadfruit trees

Gulp down rows ofyour seawalls

And crunch through your island’s shattered bones

They say you, your daughter

And your granddaughter, too

Will wander rootless

With only a passport to call home

Dear Matafele Peinem,

Don’t cry, Mommy promises you

No one will come and devour you

No greedy whale of a company

Sharking through political seas

No backwater bullying of businesses with broken morals

No blindfolded bureaucracies

Gonna push this mother ocean over the edge

No one’s drowning, baby

No one’s moving

No one’s losing their homeland

No one’s gonna become a climate change refugee

Or should I say no one else to

The Carteret Islanders of Papua New Guinea

And to the Taro Islanders of Fiji

I take this moment to apologize to you

We are drawing the line here because, baby

We are going to fight

Your mommy, daddy, Bubu Jimma

Your country and president too

We will all fight and even though there are

Those hidden behind platinum titles

Who like to pretend that we don’t exist

That the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu, Kiribati

Maldives and Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines

And floods of Pakistan, Algeria and Colombia

And hurricanes, tidalwaves

And earthquakes didn’t exist

Still there are those who see us

Hands reaching out

Fists raising up

Banners unfurling

Megaphones booming

And we are canoes blocking coal ships

We are the radiance of solar villages

We are the rich clean soil of the farmer’s past

We are the petitions blooming

From teenage fingertips

We are families

Biking, recycling, reusing,

Engineers dreaming, designing, building,

Artists painting, dancing, writing

We are spreading the word

And there are thousands

Out on the street marching

With signs hand in hand

Chanting for change now

They’re marching for you, baby

They’re marching for us

Because we deserve to do more than just survive

We deserve to thrive

Dear Matafele Peinem,

You are eyes heavy with drowsy weight

So just close those eyes, baby

And sleep in peace because

We won’t let you down

You’ll see