And they will say this beast is invincible

They will let glaciers drip

And trash be muddled with the supernatural blue until we can not tell the reek of landfill and the intoxicating scent of seaweed apart

 

They will try to rip this universal language of unity from our throats

Until we are left stranded

High and dry

Soothing our children with old legends of whales as a tsunami of natural disasters rages on outside

 

They will make us survive the very force that brought us together

The very body that washed away our care in our creed

 

Every color in water is blissful

 

They will not admit they are intimidated by our collective passion

They will simply let creatures be overfished until sea turtles and bluefin tuna are more fairy tale than nonfiction

Until our children do not know seafoam

Only bubble bath

 

They will let this enchanted forest

Open to all

Be overrun with more plastic than ivy

Until this force that has saved us

Forced us  to love each other blindly

Is more of a force to be saved from

 

But we will always fight

And no, we may never restore what once was the liquid Aurora Lights

But we will never let this savior be anything less than at least a blink of light against this cruel world overwrought with reasons to turn on one another

 

Even at its demise

This sullen black blue is what mends our wounds

And washes the hurt away with its salty laps at our ankles

 

Even on its deathbed

This gentle planetary is giving us a reason to keep living

 

It’s whispering gently in the tides

 

Survive this

 

Together

 

A dashing current come to save us from our own wreckage

and how heavy of a surrender flag must mother earth carry until we say goodbye to our

battlegrounds.             play funeral songs for the sea life we were too late to save or for earth’s seven daughters;

who’ve paved a cemetery at ocean bottom for enough creatures they’ve wondered if they’re our next eulogy.

 

i’m scared        earth’s tearfall is our only freshwater we haven’t mourned. if our droughts would end if it weren’t for all of                                 the blood,

for the             scrapes we’ve cut with fingernails and our                  own fishnets. how hungry                        our brushstrokes of war paint until the water itself

is a mural of                            blood.

until we stitch earth’s wounds of garbage bags and bottles. pray we won’t run out                          of thread.

haven’t we warned ourselves how suddenly an ecosystem can wake up at war.        army uniforms sewn from whale’s flesh.

war chants we’ve sung           to the rhythm of boat motors. for long as we’ve been predators,             we’ve forgotten sea life

doesn’t wear armor;               only scars        from yesterday’s blood shed.

 

we cannot ask ourselves how an ocean saves a world

and not ask ourselves about massacre.          or mercy.        or the stolen lands we’ve fought for in our life;

how our humanity was born from a long ancestry                of red flags.

I do not know if water can heal scars from a world who was          once bulletproof.

if it resurrects.

if mother earth is immortal until she’s on her deathbed

in a frame built from cigarette butts and rope — our artifacts from before we bury mother earth and she doesn’t float                                                                  back;

before myths               are all we read of sharks and coral reef;

when bathtubs            are where our sons and daughters learn breaststroke. but let it not be  tomorrow.

let it not be     tomorrow’s fault.

let us not lift a globe into our lap and ask our parents                      why it’s not blue anymore.