One of the most powerful speakers at the United Nations Climate Summit was 26-year-old Marshall Islands poet Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, a spoken word artist and co-founder of an environmental NGO in the Marshall Islands called Jo-JiKuM. Her small island nation is located on average, about six feet above sea level, and has been beset by extreme drought, rising seas, damaging storms and flooding that has nearly destroyed its capital city. Some of the islands have already disappeared. Jetnil-Kijiner called on world leaders to act on climate change for the benefit of future generations, speaking of the climate change influence she and her family have witnessed in the Marshall Islands. Speaking before 126 leaders assembled in New York, Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner addressed a poem, not to them, but to her seven-month-old daughter. Here are some excerpts from the poem: Dear Matafele Peinem you are a seven-month-old sunrise… you are 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 you and your daughter and your grand daughter, too, will wander rootless with only a passport to call home. Dear Matafele Peinem, don’t cry mommy promises you that no one will come and devour you no greedy whale of a country sharking through political seas no backwater bullying of businesses with broken morals no blindfolded bureaucracy is 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 becoming a climate change refugee… we are drawing the line here because baby we are going to fight… we are all going to fight and even though there are those hidden behind platinum titles who want to pretend that we don’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 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… close those eyes and sleep in peace because we won’t let you down. https://youtube/watch?v=DJuRjy9k7GA
Posted on: Thu, 25 Sep 2014 04:32:25 +0000
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