Seawall soliloquy number two: she built a seawall
My cousin
had a nightmare
that we kept
building seawalls
higher and
higher
all around
our island
up to
the sky
until suddenly
we were
at the bottom
of a wishing well
looking
up
at the world.
Copyright © 2022 by Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on May 31, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.
“This was a poem written as part of a series called ‘Seawall Soliloquies,’ which is meant to be a reflection of my work as climate envoy for the Marshall Islands. Our country is focused more on adaptation, on adapting our island to protect ourselves from the rising sea level due to climate change. As such, seawalls have, inevitably, become a part of my life—these walls that our community builds in our backyards to protect ourselves from the incoming tides.”
—Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner
Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner
Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner is a Marshallese poet and the author of Iep Jaltok: Poems from a Marshallese Daughter (University of Arizona Press, 2017). She lives in Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands.