“Tell them…”
Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, poet and climate activist.
When he asked what message he should take back to America, Rev. Brian Brandt heard, "When you go back home, tell your friends that we love our land and we belong to the land." The Palestinian man, once a small landowner farmer, now worked in an urban center in the West Bank under Israeli occupation. So he had to be careful. If the wrong person heard him, it would cost him his job.
In Palestine, they are close to their land. It is passed down from parents and grandparents and from generation to generation. Unlike our society, where we move on average of every five years, in Palestine if you ever move, your son will live in your home. Land and houses stay in your family forever.
This feeling of home is echoed by other peoples yearning for independence and freedom to live their lives not under the thumb of a colonial power. Here is a beautiful poem by Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner of the Marshall Islands. The setting is the Pacific Ocean not Palestine, the danger is global warming not hostile military occupation, but the sentiments are universal:
"most importantly tell them
we don’t want to leave
we’ve never wanted to leave
and that we
are nothing without our islands"
Tell Them by Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner (listen to her read her poem on link):
I prepared the package
for my friends in the states
the dangling earrings woven
into half moons black pearls glinting
like an eye in a storm of tight spirals
the baskets
sturdy, also woven
brown cowry shells shiny
intricate mandalas
shaped by calloused fingers
Inside the basket
a message:
Wear these earrings
to parties
to your classes and meetings
to the grocery store, the corner store
and while riding the bus
Store jewelry, incense, copper coins
and curling letters like this one
in this basket
and when others ask you
where you got this
you tell them
they’re from the Marshall Islands
show them where it is on a map
tell them we are a proud people
toasted dark brown as the carved ribs
of a tree stump
tell them we are descendents
of the finest navigators in the world
tell them our islands were dropped
from a basket
carried by a giant
tell them we are the hollow hulls
of canoes as fast as the wind
slicing through the pacific sea
we are wood shavings
and drying pandanus leaves
and sticky bwiros at kemems
tell them we are sweet harmonies
of grandmothers mothers aunties and sisters
songs late into night
tell them we are whispered prayers
the breath of God
a crown of fushia flowers encircling
aunty mary’s white sea foam hair
tell them we are styrofoam cups of koolaid red
waiting patiently for the ilomij
tell them we are papaya golden sunsets bleeding
into a glittering open sea
we are skies uncluttered
majestic in their sweeping landscape
we are the ocean
terrifying and regal in its power
tell them we are dusty rubber slippers
swiped
from concrete doorsteps
we are the ripped seams
and the broken door handles of taxis
we are sweaty hands shaking another sweaty hand in heat
tell them
we are days
and nights hotter
than anything you can imagine
tell them we are little girls with braids
cartwheeling beneath the rain
we are shards of broken beer bottles
burrowed beneath fine white sand
we are children flinging
like rubber bands
across a road clogged with chugging cars
tell them
we only have one road
and after all this
tell them about the water
how we have seen it rising
flooding across our cemeteries
gushing over the sea walls
and crashing against our homes
tell them what it’s like
to see the entire ocean_level_with the land
tell them
we are afraid
tell them we don’t know
of the politics
or the science
but tell them we see
what is in our own backyard
tell them that some of us
are old fishermen who believe that God
made us a promise
some of us
are more skeptical of God
but most importantly tell them
we don’t want to leave
we’ve never wanted to leave
and that we
are nothing without our islands.