i grew giant

by Selina N. Leem

LAKWE
MEANING: “HELLO,” “I LOVE YOU,” AND “YOU ARE A RAINBOW.”

Into the horizons we marched
Children with skinny, gangly limbs
Each tiny step on the reef
That comes out of hiding
During low tide
A warrior determination our ancestors
Would have sang their praises for
For our home
For our country
Us little warriors will save
Each of us with corals in our hands
Spread out into a long horizontal line
Our front to the roaring waves
Our back to our lamooran
Our land
We put the corals into the shallow water
And we went to get more
Grow little ones
Grow corals
We tell them
We read that corals grew towards the sun
Grow little ones
Be the giant we need you to be
In the wildly adventurous minds of a child
They would grow to be giants
Giant barriers for our home
Day after day
We would go to the ocean side Our horizon
Check all the corals
Have they grown?
Little hands picking them up
“Hmmm this seems bigger. Yes we are saved.”
Each year, we saw the corals less
The waves grew bigger
My uncle's house got torn down
They ran out with their screeching baby
Their belongings swallowed by the ocean
The day our smiles cracked
Our seawalls cracked
Savaged down to broken pieces of hope and fear
Our hope crumbled down with our fortress
Our fear rose with each rising wave
Night after night
With each high tide
But people forget,
the media turns a blind eye too
That in a state of anger, fear, and panic People act
We do not flee
We act
We will not flee We will act
Because
with each rising wave
Is our rising resilience
And sense of urgency For justice
For home
For us
Marshall Islands
The weeping home to
67 nuclear bombs
Marshall Islands
So damn strong
Absorbing each blow by blow by blow by blow by blow by blow
Marshallese, us,
Learned to live,
To live with the dire impacts
Our DNA riddled with poison
To be passed onto our children and their children
Lands were lost
People never to return
Displaced
Marshall Islands
Home to a dome suffocating with nuclear waste
That leaks day by day into the land
To the rising water
But we lived, we are surviving Most importantly, we stayed
We stayed
Let history repeat itself
Pillaged by nature angered by
Humanity’s lack of morals
Misplaced sense of responsibility
Greed to take more than they deserve
You, higher ups, blinded by your wants
Jimma told me,
“Selina your needs will last you a lifetime.
Your wants.... Will not.”
So tread carefully
No, it is not in 2040, 2050 No
Yesterdays and
Today
Now is what I need you to respond to
I’ve seen bones of loved ones Spilling out of broken graves
Torned by the angry waves
Nightmares haunt me at night
And follows me throughout the day The terror I feel
Act now
I stand here
Naij jutak ijin
For my people, my home
Nan armej ro ao, nan ijo jiku
Our corals never grew to be the giant we needed them to be
To protect us from the rising water
But I did
To 5’3
The giant to protect my home from the waves of deniers
And work hand in hand with those fighting for our planet
Together, each of us
Like the tiny corals my friends and I put out in a horizontal line
Near the outer reef
Grow tall
To stay
To be giants for our planet

From 1946 to 1958, the United States tested 67 nuclear weapons in Bikini and Enewetak Atolls (Marshall Islands), forcing these communities to evacuate their lands. Now, 60 years later, the Marshall Islands is one of the most vulnerable areas to climate change. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, by 2035 the Marshall Islands would be partially submersed due to sea level rises. You can read more about this topic here.