What does the state of our waterways say about the wellbeing of our community?
abeja ¿como le pregunto al nopal en mi brazo sobre las cicatrices del corazón? abeja ¿como le pregunto a las flores en mi piel sobre las mariposas que veo en el balcón borrosas sin los lentes que aclaran mi vista? “Yemaya me está llamando que medite frente a ella.” abeja huelo el humo en mi piel, el olor del fuego apagado en mis manos mouth breather serpiente venom miel la tierra me llama I hear its calls but I can’t tell if it’s speaking in English or Spanish or abeja my tongue feels heavy, light like a feather that weighs the same as a ton of bricks I don’t know how to build cuando ambas fuerzas viven en mí, en mi sangre, la creación y la destrucción sinónima abeja amarilla, negra llena del sol y la luna que la vieron crecer abeja a veces siento que solo busco la luz del sol para esconderme de la luna la oscuridad lo gris lo que se encuentra nadando entre mis células a veces el corazón en mi brazo izquierdo late consigo mismo, beating to the beat of something untold, something only the trees in my backyard whisper about abeja llena de miel, full of venom and honey and the sweetness they both start with abeja sometimes I still feel the morphine in my blood, running through my bloodstream like a river of heaven Maybe the border sun isn’t so bad after all. Photo & Poem by Ram Hernandez
I walk down the path toward the river and the benches. The green light is on. CBP must have put these in recently. They weren’t here the last time I came. The green flows into the water, glowing, ebbing, surrounded by a darkness that struggles to maintain its monopoly over the night. Esto es lo que las fotos muestran… un antes y un después de la luz. Pero, ¿y lo no que se ve? Wildlife that can’t grow; animals that won’t travel through brightness; ecosystems disrupted; circadian rhythms overruled. What happens when policing and surveillance takes priority over the preservation of the environment around us? What does this light accomplish, and for whom? The sun hides behind bushes and shrubs across the water. Across the boardwalk overlooking the canal, the peach sky reflects itself on the water’s surface, the first signs of a clear night sky empty of any light pollution. At least sunsets never change. Photo & Narrative by Ram Hernandez
