We are one and the same
29 March 2023
KAIJA AROGA
| Ples Singsing
In this poem, Ms. Aroga shows us how to avoid
“the throng of environmental evangelism”
- Faumuina Felolini Maria Tafuna’I,
Samoan poet, journalist and dramatist
The secret to loving everything
Is to love just one thing
When I saw him it was on a pale eve
With the last of the light taking leave
And so I loved the sunset that revealed him to me
Along with the rain tree
That sheltered the park on the night
He looked may way and smiled at the sight
Of whatever it was that amused
Him enough to cast me a bemused
Smile but it’s while the wind makes golden waves of the honey duke fields on sultry noon’s
That I talk about him to the pale moon
Then I love the way nature responds in silent whispers
Like his voice: a hushed breeze that calms and the soul lingers
To love the forests we tread and the mountains we hiked
To wish no harm came to his coral reefs where we scuba dived
To love one thing
Is to love everything
Because in the sand is his footprints
And on the hilltops are the missing links
That pointed me home
To all the evergreen abodes he roamed
So in loving him and everything else was to love the flowers he cherished
And the others about to diminish
To love the lands he traversed
was to want them protected and conserved
To say this is his history, this is his people, this is his heritage
Is to say these are all mine too and I am proud of the same privilege
To call this part of the southern sky his and my home
And to want nothing more than for it to remain a pristine evergreen dome
Being one and the same
Though bearing different names
His hands the coarse colour of brown earth from which we were formed
My womb the birthplace of generations yet to be born
Our home a lush mass in an ocean of blue
I know not the difference between me and you.
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