In the text “African Mermaids and Other Water Spirits”, one line that stood out to me right away was “African water spirits often personify the source of water in which they live…” This sentence shows how humans relate to their environment. By saying water spirits “personify” rivers, lakes and springs, it shows that these water systems are not treated as objects or resources for us to use but instead with identity and power. This reveals how African culture often turns nature into a living presence and how that understanding shapes their behavior, respect and responsibility toward water.
When a river is imagined as a spirit, especially a powerful goddess like Yemoja or Mami Wata it becomes something you have a relationship with. You would never pollute a river that you have a relationship with or take from a lake without acknowledging the spirits that live within it. By using personification it creates more of an ethical framework. Nature isn’t separate from people, instead it becomes a part of our social world. This challenges the idea of “managing nature”, where water is usually being controlled or extracted. The text made it clear that many African traditions instead “manage” the relationship between humans and the environment through different rituals, respect and storytelling.
Another important part of that quote is that these spirits “bear the same name as the river in which they dwell.” This shows how identity and landscape are woven together. The river isn’t just home to the spirit, the river IS the spirit. This gets rid of the boundary between physical and spiritual, reminding people that water isn’t simply a background element of life. It has personality, identity and memory. When the reading later describes modern stories of mermaid sightings at dams or construction sites, it becomes clear that these beliefs still act as warnings. If water is alive, then disturbing it such as building dams, diverting rivers, polluting lakes will risk messing with the spirit.
What I find most interesting is how this worldview builds a sense of accountability. If you misuse water, something will happen. Personification makes environmental harm feel personal. The quote reminds us that many African cultures already had systems for protecting water long before modern sustainability conversations. Seeing a river as a spirit isn’t just a myth , it’s a cultural technology for care and responsibility. In the end, the line reveals that water spirits aren’t just folklore. They are part of a larger idea that treats nature as alive, interconnected, and deserves respect and honestly, that view feels more sustainable than the one we’re living with today.
Tate Mcrae represents the alluring and dangerous sound of the siren as love, something captivating in a beautiful way, in her song “Siren sounds” to uphold this ideal about sirenic ability to lure people in; she then utilizes it to describe what is known to be damning and destructive so often becomes elusive and craved. Natural human instinct desires to delve further in regardless of cautionary tales, to be so entranced by and succumb to their treacherous wants because it signifies momentary pleasure.
The song reflects her deeper feelings about one particular love, and how this partner of hers stays alongside her in spite of the danger that they both clearly recognize approaching. Her emotions, and overall argument presented are embedded majorly in the repeating lines of the second half of the chorus: “Might be crazy to stick this out /But we can’t see all the flames around/You and I, and I/We’re just dancin’ to the siren sounds” (Mcrae, 0:43-0:56). Her immediate recognition of their behavior, saying it appears as ridiculous or “crazy” to anyone else, is the first admittance that these actions, to anyone else, are irrational. In really analyzing her word choice though, it becomes quite clear how this view doesn’t seem to impact her, or become completely internalized whatsoever. Specifically claiming that they “might be crazy” carries so much weight in recognizing her argument; there is this underlying sense of the reality, but an overwhelming amount of carelessness as to what is factual, in order to feel the good parts of their love.
This narrative seems to continue with the way she describes their oblivion against everything going on, that they are physically blinded to the torture. Her particular choice in the world around them as on fire places an emphasis on this hot, blazing passion, as a result of its typical usage as a comparison to intense emotion. Its all consuming nature could potentially hurt them both, but they seem to choose the bliss that comes with being ignorant to their situation. The enticement that comes with these situations that could cause injury makes her and her lover choose to keep their eyes blinded to this inferno around them that could collapse their world. Getting so invested in this and pretending it won’t hurt you, like sitting right next to the fire knowing how you may get burned, ingrained itself in human nature because it brings that singular moment of joy. The beauty of love before it falls, the warmth of a fire before it spikes and chars your skin, all fuels this human need to seek what is clearly harmful. If it provides just a moment of excitement, human nature wants to choose to risk it.
She continues to emphasize how much choice really plays a role in this, and how much agency she truly has. Part of the narrative of sirens in day-to-day media, in easy access stories that people find when they do not diligently study to understand sirens, is their entrapment. The men they push into the dark waters to their deaths, or the way sirens are held hostage by their hybridity all perpetuate this idea that no choice is allotted to their lifestyle. Mcrae flips this narrative when she emphasizes herself, a feminine figure, in discussing how they dance. Her repetition, which plays an incredibly crucial role in reiteration and absolution throughout the song, occurs solely on the pronoun that depicts her as a force of her own desire, “And I, and I”. It combines both this idea that sirenic relation does not automatically denote the loss of agency people tend to assume, but also that these subjectively agonizing decisions come from deep within the psyche. It is her and him that decide to dance, that want to stay and be deluded by that burning before them, if it means they bask in each other’s presence for that moment.
Actual mentions of hybrid aquatic beings don’t appear as a part of her story until the final line of the repetition, where she claims they dance away to its beautiful incantations. The “siren sounds” refers to the commonly mentioned tale within myths, where the sirens utilize beautiful voices to the point of hypnosis to draw men in for a multitude of reasons. In her case, it metaphorically refers to the way love feels so encapsulating, so all encompassing that people become mesmerized by it. It is to the point that they become blinded to everything negative about it, the same way these sirens depended on men to be so entranced by them, they forgot what they knew to be true about their malicious intentions. She emphasizes though, that they are not simply put to sleep by it; they forge their own path once again to flourish and enjoy themselves in it, because they deny that the destruction could ever catch up to their excitement. While their delusion creates the imagery that their love is without fault, it is their agency that allows them to forge it as something they enjoy, because of this inner desire to keep after this uncertainty.
The entire message she conveys, the way humanity desires that which damns us for brief enjoyment, the idea that people choose these things of their own free will, that every rational thought would go directly against this kind of action, is represented quite holistically when it comes to Odysseus and the sirens he encounters during his journey. Within The Odyssey, the warning of sirens he will inevitably face from Athena mimics this idea of how Mcrae’s character becomes cognizant of the insanity in their relationship through other’s weariness. Odysseus eventually makes this choice to allow his men to cover their ears, but tie him to the mast for him to gain the knowledge that the sirens are known to spread. It originates this idea of human need to go after what is infamous, as he and Mcrae both make this choice, reiterating their “And I” or guaranteeing his men will not remove him. They crave so desperately to chase their ultimate desires, regardless of its volatile reputation. In both cases, there is that allure of some grand objective, her love and him knowledge, that becomes enough to overpower their rational thought. They take major risks, despite understanding how it can inevitably scorn them, because their human naivete believes this fleeting fulfillment is worth it.
Siren nature, their sounds and their stories, ultimately demonstrate this sovereignty that they have, and how it eventually became a reflection of human decision. Despite the understanding of how some pieces of life inherently cause damage, people still seek them. Tate Mcrae’s song “Siren sounds” utilizes how the power of being the deciding factor in one’s life allows them to do whatever they desire, regardless of peril. Experiencing even just a second of satisfaction is enough motivation to throw their caution to the sea.
Writing the name as “Ocean” is not a way of a human individual giving the Ocean an identity, as we have no individual rights to name the natural world. It is a way of showing recognition to what has always been present. Roordan reorganizes our thinking in regards to human ownership, what we conceive to be within our own domain of influence and what is actually out of our control. “Ocean” is the world and environment.
In the piece, Roordan explains to the audience the ideology behind the word “Ocean” being capitalized as one would a “country or continent.” Roordan’s comparison shows us that instead of viewing the Ocean as a “thing” – an object for humans to use – we recognize it for the geographical individuality and statehood sovereignty it possesses. The idea of nationhood in itself is a man made conception only established in a modern age. Calling a state by its individual and capitalized name shows recognition of ownership to that nation, a sign that we as a separate nation respect your right to rule and interact with your nation as you see fit. Capitaling Ocean is the beginning of an evolution in human relationship with the Ocean and the rights it contains over itself, not the rights we believe are assigned to it.
Lack of capitalization “infantilizes” the Ocean in a way. To us, we see it as a resource for our needs, which then becomes exploited by a race of humans, which then needs conservation by those same races of humans. The Ocean does not need us to govern its tides. The Ocean does not need us to tell it how to care for its creatures and environment. The Ocean has never needed human influence in how it governs. It has total control on the regulation of its waves, its currents, its foam. For all of documented History, the Ocean is responsible for the carrying of knowledge. It has brought creatures across the globe to new lands, stretching biodiversity and evolution across the Earth. It has carried messages from one country to another. It has exchanged goods, people, technology, all for the benefit of humanity. Ocean decides where it moves. Ocean decides who leaves and who stays within its waters. Ocean is an individual, with its own systems, rules. It is a nation that for too long has been denied the respect it deserves from humans in regards to its name. Rooted in our written language is the disregard for Ocean vocabulary, viewing it as ours instead of itself. Even as I write this, the autocorrect wishes to “correct” Ocean to “ocean.” We have been ignorant and naive for far too long. We have deprived a nation from its title, the respect it deserves from those who expect so much from it. We have been taught incorrectly from a young age that the ocean is not a state, but a vast horizon, one that without human exploration, poses no insight to our kind. Yet – why should it reveal its secrets to us? What has the human race ever given this nation in return?
In the political world, Nations exchange values with each other. Whether this be knowledge, economics, or policy, someone is winning in the barter. And what does the Ocean get? Nothing. We have never given the Ocean anything. We see it as being something within human confluence, therefore iot deserves no proper respect. We take and take, expecting its gifts to keep on giving. And yet – it is still here. It has always been here and it will be here long after humans have left this planet. The first step in correcting the damage we have done to its identity is paying proper respect to its name, its individualism, its Statehood. We are not the ones placing a name on it. We are recognizing it for the domain it has always been. Taking this small step will repair our relationship and lack of understanding we have come to be so comfortable with in regards to the Ocean.
Roordan is responsible for reshaping how the readers see the Ocean and our relationship with it as a whole. This small correction to our everyday language positively impacts human connection with the Ocean and shows how we are able to give it the recognition and authority it has always withheld. Ocean identity is a part of the world, a massive nation that impacts us all. No matter how we try to shape the viewpoint as the Ocean being ours, something for human domination, Ocean will always come out on top. The Ocean is sovereign, the Ocean is a Nation, and we are at the will of how it shall dictate over us.
The myth of Yemaja and Aganju demonstrates the lithe way Yoruba people link forces of nature and human emotions in divine narratives. One excerpt that specifically stands out is Yemaja bursting open after being assaulted by her son, Orungan. The text states: “Two streams of water gushed from her breasts… and from her gaping body came the birth of many gods…” This passage epitomizes the horror but also the sacredness of creation – the a painful healing giving rise to creation, energy, and the other biological aspects of the universe. The swelling of her body and the releasing of deities such as Shango, Oya, and Oshun suggest that in Yoruba cosmology, creation occurs not from divine perfection, but from rupture and transformation. Her pain then becomes the source of rivers, mountains, fertility, and the planets.. the sun and moon. In the myth of Yemaja, creation is not an act made in order by godly places, it emerges violently and emotionally from and for human beings suggesting that in Yoruba cosmology, sacredness and the chaos of life are seamlessly wed.
This instance in the narrative illustrates how Yoruba mythology rejects the idea of untainted, remote generation, and instead, relies on divinity being situated in an embodied experience and emotion. The body of Yemaja–the female, the mortal, and the divine–becomes the actual foundation of the world. When she bursts from her abdomen, it becomes a moment of both tragedy and generation, making her both the source of the generation and also the mother of every god subsequently across the generations. In many Western traditions, the creation comes from some word or will (e.g. God speaking the universe into creation), the body and therefore, motherhood and labor pains, become the foundational metaphor of creation. The conquest of the sacred becomes physically anchored, not despite physicality. Yemaja’s pain then becomes rivers and fertility, her milk becomes water that sustains life. This fluid image reinforces that the Yoruba universe is alive, reciprocal, and sensuous.
Moreover, the myth obscures distinctions among destruction and creation, purity, and pollution. Orungan’s violent act- sympathetic in his longing yet irredeemable in his act- initiates cosmic change. His yearning and Yemaja’s resistance generate violent, transformational energy. From human violation, divine order emerges. Ife, which means “distention” or “swelling up” symbolizes that out of rupture, there is both physical and spiritual growth. This places creation inextricably at loss, as it resonates to the repeated acts of birth, death, and regeneration that characterize nature and society. This tension between pain and renewal illustrates how Yoruba cosmology understands the world to be imperfect from the outset and constantly born out of struggle and emotion.
The Yoruba imagination suggests, through the myth of Yemaja, that suffering becomes a new birth, meaningless pain, divine power, and godliness resides in the body and emotion and raw movement of nature, not outside of these elements. In this story, the sacred can bleed, swell, and transform rather than issue commands from above. The suffering, and ultimately fertile body of Yemaja, represents how the Yoruba worldview understands creation as a continuous act of emotional and physical metamorphosis and being as part of life, where beauty and chaos coexist as equally powerful forces of life.
In Gabriella Tesfaye’s short film, “The Water Will Carry Us Home,” she reimagines the Ocean as a living history, depicting it as a place that holds the souls and voices of the enslaved, transforming their anguish into freedom and renewal. The use of Mermaids in Tesfaye’s film explores the concept that the Ocean not only remembers and preserves but also restores. Her stop-motion film paves the way for lost voices to be brought to the surface.
Following the ships that sailed through the Middle Passage, Tesfaye’s film highlights the lives of numerous enslaved Africans who were thrown overboard into the sea. At 3:38 of the video, Tesfaye shows someone being thrown from the ship, depicting how “unwanted” Africans were meant to be forgotten. Not only is this film made with hand-drawn art, but Tesfaye also uses cutouts of real enslaved Africans. This enhances the reality of the story she is telling, as authentic pictures of historical events help prove to the watchers that these are real stories. One minute later, at 4:38, a water “spirit” is shown following close behind the ship. This water spirit takes the form of a Mermaid and presents the notion that she is protecting the History of the Africans aboard the vessel. At 4:20 of the video, we see this Mermaid spirit whispering close to one of the abandoned Africans. Rather than seeing the Ocean as a void of the Earth, she illustrates it as a form of consciousness. Using this spirit to reimagine the Ocean as a place that holds living archives of their stories. She highlights the essence of the Ocean as it absorbs and remembers the souls of the enslaved, ultimately reviving their spirits. These bodies and stories, which were meant to be erased, have been preserved and protected by the Ocean. Tesfaye turns a moment of horror into beauty by displaying the Ocean as a place of safety and stability for these forgotten stories. This accentuates the concept that the Ocean holds on to the stories that History wants to silence. By giving the water its own voice, Tesfaye highlights the importance of protecting the humanity of the people who were denied it on land.
The main Mermaid depicted in Tesfaye’s film serves as a kind of guardian to their lost souls. At 4:32 in her short film, three lost souls are shown being transformed into Mermaids, ultimately preserving their cultural history. The Mermaid portrayed in this short film serves as a spiritual rebirth for the enslaved, transforming their suffering into a new beginning. These people have been given a second life away from the pain and suffering they endured on land. Tesfaye’s Mermaid creates a haven for these souls, reinforcing the idea that ancestral traditions survive through the Ocean despite erasure. The Mermaids embody the essence of the Ocean, restoring souls and humanity within these forgotten memories. At 4:46 of her short film, Tesfaye shows the mending of a family whose lives were meant to be lost at sea. A mother, father, and baby are the main focus of this scene, emphasizing how the Mermaid carries out the Ocean’s role in preserving their souls. By restoring their agency and identity, the Mermaid in this story brings a sense of belonging to those who were forcibly removed from their homes. Ultimately, illustrating how the Ocean acts as a form of History, giving new life and preserving the souls of the Africans whose stories were suppressed.
Through her rich imagery and artistic language, Gabriella Tesfaye transforms the Ocean into an active form of History and rebirth. Her short film reinforces the idea that the Ocean is the keeper of their souls and stories. She restores the History of the Middle Passage through her exposure and remembrance of their History as protected by the Ocean. “The Water Will Carry Us Home” serves as a voice for the enslaved, demonstrating that the Ocean preserves not only their pain but also their identity, strength, and link to their ancestors.
When first seeing the mermaid depicted in the center of the piece, along with it is a simultaneously visual ambiguity and a sense of wonder. On the one hand, the figure evokes ancient myth about a mermaid. But, the mermaid has also become lost in an artificial landscape made up of plastic bottles as waves, merging the mythical beauty of the ocean and the pollution that is inescapable today in the ocean. The details, colors and artistry invite viewers in closer, not only is there the twist of the deformed plastic, and glimmers of blue and green, the visual imaging creates a sea fantasy and displacement, however it is made of plastic. It raises the questions, is the mermaid only marooned in this landscape, or is it a challenge to the viewers ignorant, complacent body, and signifies the truth of ecological annihilation. The space itself, is a thoughtful, staged space distinct and separate from the public beach, or wild ocean landscape; it is distorted and blurs the lines of the beach, and open water, inviting all to remember pollution is not just a faraway, public issue, it arrives right into our most intimate, personal and private places. Looking Carefully at this image, we can see how the modern mermaid functions as a powerful icon for environmental crisis in the context of certain private spaces–both on land and in the sea that are also polluted. Yet, the polluted places can become a source of activism, change, and challenging the concept of a relationship to nature.
The mermaid depiction both subverts its viewers’ expectations, and employs the aesthetic language of the genre of myth in order to make an explicit commentary about our own complicity in environmental harm. By organizing the plastics so that it appears as though one is viewing the ocean, the artist not only presents the viewer with the staggering amount of waste, but intentionally makes the “waves” seem enticing – even beautiful – from a distance. Upon closer inspection, however, the truth is inescapable: this is not water, it is the pollution that threatens marine life. The mermaid’s iridescent tail, which was created to move gracefully in rhythm with the synthetic ‘waives’, serves as a visual focal point to describe nature’s relationship with the human world’s careless consumption. Instead of simple depicting the mermaid as another victim, her stance between the act of swimming and reaching conveys resistance and hope amidst peril.
In, Emelia Škarnulytė’s short film “Sirenomelia,” relates to the image because it serves as a call for reclamation. When a magic figure such as the mermaid occupies sites of conflict, whether a legacy of an active military base or garbage in a sea, she urges us to think about ways to engage in the traumatic past and creates possibilities for the future. The sea covered in plastic becomes not just a representation of our collective, failure, but an invitation to find energy and material for activism and creative revisioning. In both circumstances, as the mermaid rewrites the narrative of loss and hopelessness, she balances room to locate adaptation, resilience, and not simply belief, but opportunities for renewal even in the most abandoned and hurtful spaces.
The setting of the image is critical. The intimacy of an interior private space collapses the perceived distance between environmental destruction and “safe” culture (or consumer) space; it implicates everyone, including the viewer, into the environmental crisis. Unlike more public, environmental awareness campaigns the situate litter in remote parts of nature, the image insists that the living room, as a place and living routine, is both part of the problem and the solution. The mermaid, as an outsider and intermediary, produces a public witness to private waste. As an activist presence, the mermaid reframes individual responsibility to include activism that starts at home.
Further examination of the visual details reveals further depth. Even though the plastic bottles are commonplace, polluting out oceans, and responsible for much of the cultural mythology, they are all, in new formations, ordered in a particular fashion that creates an unsettling beauty. This is the same capacity of art itself– to display unsettling truths in a manner that can affect viewers emotionally and intellectually. The image of the mermaid uses that capacity to persuade viewers to explore how they relate to the environment and also how they relate to cultural mythology.
Additionally, mermaids have been a part of a larger trend in environmental activism. Recently, in contemporary art, and in activist campaigns, mermaids have made a comeback to link, especially, young audiences (visually or literally) to the ocean crisis regarding plastics debris, rising sea levels, and species at risk. So the image you share indicates a movement seeking to make myth a relevant and relatable vehicle for eco-centrism. The presenting of the mermaid in a polluted, restricted context emphasizes the nuance of the mermaid’s positioning, as she represents both disruption from human interaction and a motivation to address environmental injustice.
This piece not only laments a relationship lost with nature through these artistic decisions but also encourages viewers to re-conceptualize places that are polluted into sites of activism and change. The mermaid- a figure of both beauty and warning in mythology- becomes an advocate for change suggesting to viewers that they must act not only from a place of fear but also from a place of hope. When viewed from the perspective of myth, plastic pollution is daunting, yet feels less overwhelming. This myth becomes a call to action to reimagine the boundaries between destruction and renewal, especially in the private and daily spaces that we often overlook.
In summary, the contemporary mermaid, as seen in this image, goes beyond merely a passive symbol and instead compels engagement. By careful analysis of each formal and thematic element, we come to a reading in which the mermaid’s polluted, private environments can inspire activism and allow us to imaginatively re-create a different relationship to the environment. This reading turns the image into only a critique, but a call to action, and an argument that even the most polluted worlds can be a catalyst for change.
In the short film The Water Will Carry Us Home , slaves are thrown off a slave ship and their sprints are saved by mermaids. Something that I noticed before the story began was the hand drawn on a woman’s hand approaching the camera before the screen goes blank. The spiritual eye could mean a transition to higher consciousness and insight. Tesfayes inclusion of the hand with the eye right before the story begins is like a point of relaxation and focus.
After the story is over, after everything is revealed through the journey that the slaves went through and the meeting with the mermaid, there is a blank screen again at the end of the video with the sound of the rooster. What do we know about the sound of the rooster? That it usually means it is time to wake up. This is an awakening! An awakening for the slaves that were left to be forgotten, their lives and stories that were almost forgotten through the concealment of others. Not only was the video a video of awareness of history that has been attempted to be hidden but it’s a transition of the progression towards a different life.
Gabrielle Tesfaye’s short film “The Water Will Carry Us Home” establishes that this is not the white-washed, Christian version of history that we are told in high school about the transatlantic slave trade. Tesfaye doesn’t set out to give us a realistic explanation; however, she sets out to tell a story, which is neglected by the education system as a whole. We are told that the transatlantic slave trade was tragic, but that’s about all we learn. We learn nothing of what happened to these lost souls who died during the journey from the continent of Africa to the “New World.” We don’t even know the stories of those enslaved people before they became enslaved people. What Tesfaye sets out to do is offer a story for these souls, almost as if she were granting them a final resting wish to tell their stories.
The transitions between watching real-life Tesfaye holding a ritual to the painted stop motion illustrating the slave trade back to real-life Tesfaye demonstrate not just the past and present day, but also represent what stories can be told. Tesfaye, in the “real world,” is able to tell her story because she can create something that communicates her story. She creates this art that punctuates her existence to the world. But for the lost souls of the slave trade, they cannot. What Tesfaye does is create a story for them so that they may not be forgotten. Tesfaye offers them a story that does not lead to a watery, unmarked death. Instead, she offers them new life in the underwater, being reborn and returned to the water—the water from which we all came.
When we go back to real-life Tesfaye, we see her plugging her headphones into the sand. Yes, she physically connects herself to the land, but she also listens to the voices of the ancestors whose lives were lost. She honors them by hearing them, then creating something to tell their story. The land and the ocean both act as an archive in these instances, preserving the history that has been lost to, ironically, an ocean. Their souls might have been lost to the ocean, but the ocean gave them a home. It gave them a second life, as Tesfaye aims to communicate in her film.
In “The Sea is History,” Derek Walcott reframes the ocean as an archive that resists the neat documentation associated with Western historiography. Walcott suggests that the sea functions as both a repository and ruin, one where it is a space where traditional historial “records” dissolve, yet the collective memory endures in non-material ways.
This tension emerges in the passage “the sea had locked them up. The sea is History.” Walcott’s choice in using the verb “locked” implies both safekeeping and imprisonment. The drowned bodies of enslaved Africans, unnamed and unarchived, are not lost; rather they are held in a space where history often overlooks. Walcott also elevates the ocean from backdrop to narrator and the sea becomes a historical text written by its currents, storms, and absences. He deepens this idea in the lines describing “the rusting cannons and broken statues.” These symbols of empire are not glorified; they decay underwater, stripped of authority. Their ruin exposes the fragility of colonial narratives that once claimed permanence.
Ultimately, the poem argues that history cannot only be found written in documents, but also what they gloss over: the trauma, silence, and memories embedded in places often ignored. Walcott’s ocean demands that we listen to the history that has been submerged for centuries.
I really liked this poem because in last week’s post, I mentioned something similar about how the Ocean contains its own history. I liked the imagery in it as well, but my favorite line was “bone soldered by coral to bone” because I feel that it reminds us that our past bodies and lives are still beneath the surface of the Ocean. I love the way it implies that not only does the Ocean carry a symbolic history of life, but a physical one as well. All the archives that have been preserved at the bottom of the ocean, or even in the shallow ends. There are aspects of life that, if we one day can venture down and capture, we can see into the history of so many lives.
The idea that the ocean holds history is something I love to think about. The amount of space the Ocean covers gives it the opportunity to hold so much history. There is also this connection this poem had to the film “The Water Will Carry Us Home”. It’s an extension of the idea that the water tells a story, a story of life that once was. The water acts as a preservative for life, the one thing in our world that over decades and centuries never truly changes. At least, it doesn’t change completely by itself, so not only is it its own history, but it is also the history of humans. The impact that human lives have on the Ocean is also the kind of history that it holds onto.
I love the way this poem guides us to acknowledging that the water holds stories of suffering, identity, and survival. Showing us the importance of seeing the Ocean as a form of history and not just a body of water. Taking care of us as if it were a museum of relics rather than a big puddle. It takes the life of the Ocean and compares it to the life of humans, showing the similarities between life in the water and life on land.
Song of the Week: Oceans Breath by Software (I like the way this song starts and then how jazzy it gets. Even with the jazz, this song has a background of “sea-like” siren sounds/music.
