I feel it every day.
As I sip my coffee on my balcony, I notice:
A weaker morning breeze hitting my face,
The sun beaming a little too harshly midafternoon,
The night offering no cooling solace.
I overlook the world and feel her take longer to wake, longer to thrive and longer to rest.
Or maybe it’s me?
I feel the sand, the time, the hope, slipping through my fingers
While I grasp for meaning within this crumbling natural world.
Who am I when the colors of the leaves become brown with heat
and now crinkle as the wind passes through?
When birds fly towards windows of green promise
Only to find the mirror image of trees to be their last earthly view?
Or when as each year passes, I lose forms of life—
The playful sunfish and tadpoles tickling my toes,
the flowers I visit as I bike to work,
the stray neighborhood cats rolling in grass patches,
the hummingbirds greeting me with their jeweled plumage,
the bees buzzing in harmony in the wildflowers I planted—
That bring me so much love, structure, promise, and connection?
To me, the world as I know it is coming to an end, and so am I.
But is the world truly dying?
Even when all I can do sometimes is mourn—
About what has been, what should have grown, and what never shall be—
I know that because I have been, grown and will return my mortal being to the earth,
Someone else will continue the cycle, grasp the sand, the time, the hope,
and let them pass slower through their fingers.
It’s true that the world is dying, and I along with it.
But I can’t wait to see her rise, thrive, and rest once again.
Without me, and with you.
—
Kenza Oualim is a 26-year-old Master’s student in the School of Marine and Environmental Affairs at the University of Washington. She grew up in “a very post-positivistic space where art had no way of being used within the scientific world [she] belonged in.” Now as an adult trying to carve a new education path for herself and others, she hopes to show how art (including poetry) is powerful in creating snapshots of the world, feelings, sense of self and the interactions between them. Her particular research interest is in decreasing the rift between scientists and community members by facilitating commonality between their struggles, perceptions and hopes through artistry.
