Yvanna Vien Tica
typhoon pag-asa
Photo by Madison Swart, Photographer
T
he Manila Bay breaks
under a spring storm. I am again five
& watching the flood rise
out of season. There goes a dog
straining to swim. The flashlight dies
so my mother lights a candle
we reserve for birthdays.
The wax slips down the wick. Hours before,
I’d watched the weather gray
& believed it benign; the weather forecast on TV
had promised safety. Still, my mother prays
& prays as the rain comes with a holy vengeance.
Hours later, when the rain stops, we are ushered
downstairs. There goes the TV, shivering
in the water. Our chairs float, but my mother’s sobs
keep my childish hands from riding them. I am five, & the water
is still friendly, the TV always empty
of the numbered dead. In America, I tell my classmates
about the floods & laugh at the memory, preferring not
to let them know of their hellish weight. How they could drag
a five-year-old down under, provide homes
for malaria-infected mosquitoes. An American friend
tells me she drinks water straight from the tap, so I return home
to stare at our dripping faucet, remembering my mother’s warnings about how
the Manila Bay is gagging with trash,
how tap water is not as clean
as we’d wish it to be. I am again five
& listening to my mother tell me it wasn’t
always like this. That the water was clean once. That we could trust
the forecast once. In America, I look for photos of the original
Manila Bay before its waters turned
sluggish with human waste. Instead I find hordes
of people facing a flotsam shore of garbage, trash pickers
in hand. I must be five again with this newborn belief
that there is still time for the TV to find itself empty
of lost lives & homes to report, for us to remember
that the water is not too far gone. Yes, when the Manila Bay swells
with fish & carefree beachgoers, the floods flushed of its greed, I will be five again,
relearning to drink tap water, to dance
at the sight of rain, to trust
freely, safely.
Yvanna Vien Tica
Poet
Yvanna Vien Tica, 17
Quezon City, Philippines
Gold Award, 2021 Ocean Awareness Contest
One of my earliest memories involves a typhoon that hit our home especially hard; the flood reaching almost five feet. Many die from typhoon-related disasters and water-borne diseases each year. I see the connection between climate change and the growing frequency of extreme weather in the Philippines. While there’s still time, we must take care of available resources and invest in climate change initiatives. In Tagalog, “pag-asa” means “hope.” I believe that to stand united against climate change means continuing to choose hope. After all, the world is long due for a typhoon of hope to crash against every shore.
REFUGEES OF CLIMATE CHANGE
RUO CHENG XIAO
typhoon pag-asa
yvanna vien tica
OCEAN COUNTRY
LIZ CUNNINGHAM