A Journey Home by Marshallese Youth
A Journey Home by Daphne Peter, Marcina Langrine, Joyce Hirose, Neimony Netwan, Trina Marty, Benetick Kabua-Maddison / Edited by Lovely Umayam of the Bombshelltoe Policy x Arts Collective
This community poem was written by six Marshallese students — ranging from high school to undergraduate — living in Springdale, Arkansas. It is a reflection on the many meanings of home: as Arkansas, as the Marshall Islands, and as Earth that needs to be protected and cultivated for the next generation.
A Journey Home
My feet move
through fresh mud
after the rain,
spring leaves crunch
under my shoes,
careful not to step
on the many-legged
creatures
that call this place
home.
Clouds appear when I
breathe out.
This Earth is my home too.
I find new paths every day,
soles full of memories
that I have made:
Home is in the stillness
of trees that flank
the rugged road
winding into miles and miles
of breathtaking wild.
Home is in the loud hooting
during football games—
“Woooooooo pig sooie!”—
and the crisp hiss
of a soda can
pried open
on a summer day.
Home is in the riot of my bedroom,
where purple string lights dangle
like dancing punk fairies,
as I sing along loops
of my favorite songs.
I find home when I travel.
Like that one time in Seattle,
a city that smells of brine
brewed from the sea.
Skinned fish and home-made cheese
sit pretty under the patter of rain
and the squabble of seagulls
bathing in the bay.
But there is one home I long for:
The Marshall atolls,
daughters of the ocean,
forged by primordial coral.
They call my name.
My feet move
through sand
damp from the waves.
They pull me.
Palms seek the cool touch
of sea foam
like delicate lace.
These islands are
my inheritance;
Earthly gems
under opulent stars.
But I cannot walk further.
The water is a terrifying mood,
eating away the island lagoons.
Sea walls battered,
now crumbling.
Storms split the leaning palms,
the same ones swallowed
by nuclear plumes
many years ago.
Men gave atom bombs
a place in world history.
But what about this home?
Smudged out of the story,
I fear people only saw the dirty red cloud,
and not the bruised Earth below.
In the future, will these island daughters
sink to the ocean floor?
I fear people only see a drowned land
instead of an Earth worth saving.
These questions stump me,
but still I stitch a map
to connect what matters most:
My family, my culture,
my Marshall Island home.
A map of
the Marshalls
not as a place, but a people
to guide a future generation
whose feet will meet
the islands with love,
and without fear.
But I long to find a path
towards home—
the emerald countryside
or the blue Pacific tides—
that will stay safe,
where my children
can tumble
into a beautiful
brightness
and feel
Earth as stable
bedrock
under their newly-formed soles,
while their little palms,
fingers splayed,
reach for the sky—
a limitless canvas—
where time is constant and still.
The article about the poem can be found here.