Praise Song for Oceania

Um filme-poema

Vencedor 2018 do Silver Lei Award para o Short Film Competition of the Honolulu Film Awards

O escritor chileno Pablo Neruda disse uma vez: "Preciso do oceano porque me ensina". Para o Dr. Craig Perez, poeta e professor de Guam, não foi diferente. O seu desejo de promover a alfabetização dos oceanos nas comunidades do Pacífico e a consciencialização sobre a nossa interação com os oceanos e tudo o que os oceanos nos podem ensinar levou-o a compor um poema para o Dia Mundial do Oceanos, intitulado "Praise Song for Oceania".

O poema inspirou o cineasta havaiano Justyn Ah Chong a produzir uma adaptação cinematográfica, que foi exibida em festivais de cinema na Austrália, Barbados, Alemanha, Reino Unido (Londres) e nos Estados Unidos.

Poem for World Oceans Day by Craig Santos Perez

Praise Song for Oceania*

(em 8 de junho de 2016, Dia Mundial dos Oceanos)

“Ocean, we // had been your griot”
—Brenda Hillman

praise
your capacity
for birth / your fluid
currents and trenchant
darkness / praise your contracting
waves & dilating
horizons / praise our briny
beginning, the source
of every breath / praise
your endless bio-
diversity / praise

your capacity
for renewal / your rise
into clouds and descent
into rain / praise your underground
aquifers / your rivers & lakes,
ice sheets & glaciers / praise
your watersheds &
hydrologic cycles / praise

your capacity
to endure / the violence
of those who claim dominion
over you / who map you
empty ocean to pillage / who divide you
into latitudes & longitudes /
who scar your middle
passages / who exploit
your economy* / praise

your capacity
to survive / our trawling
boats / breaching /
your open body /
& taking from your
collapsing depths / praise

your capacity
to dilute / our sewage
& radioactive waste /
our pollutants & plastics /
our heavy metals
& greenhouse gases / praise

your capacity
to bury / soldiers & terrorists,
slaves & refugees / to bury
our last breath
of despair / to bury
the ashes of our
loved ones / praise

your capacity
to remember / praise
your library of drowned
stories / praise your museum
of lost treasures / praise
our migrant routes
& submarine roots / praise

your capacity
to penetrate /
praise your rising tides
& relentless storms & towering
tsunamis & feverish
floods / praise

your capacity
to smother /
schools of fish & wash them
ashore to save them
from our cruelty /
to show us what we’re
no longer allowed to take
/ to starve us like your corals
are being starved & bleached /
like your liquid lungs
choked of oxygen / praise

your capacity
to forgive / please
forgive our territorial hands
& acidic breath / please
forgive our nuclear arms
& naval bodies / please
forgive our concrete dams
& cabling veins / please
forgive our deafening sonar
& lustful tourisms / please
forgive our invasive drilling
& deep sea mining / please
forgive our extractions
& trespasses / praise

your capacity
for mercy / please
let our grandfathers and fathers
catch just one more fish / please
make it stop raining soon / please
make it rain soon / please
spare our fragile farms & fruit trees / please
spare our low-lying islands & atolls / please
spare our coastal villages & cities / please
let us cross safely to a land
without war / praise

your capacity
for hope /
praise your rainbow
warrior & peace
boat / your hokuleʻa
& sea shepherd / praise
your arctic sunrise & flotillas
of hope / praise your nuclear free
& independent pacific movement /
praise your marine stewardship
councils & sustainable
fisheries / praise your radical
seafarers & native navigators /
praise your sacred water walkers /
praise your activist kayaks
& canoes / praise your ocean
conservancies & surfrider foundations /
praise your aquanauts & hyrdolabs /
praise your coastal cleanups
& Google Oceans /
praise your whale hunting
& shark finning bans /
praise your sanctuaries
& no take zones / praise
your pharmacopeia of new
antibiotics / praise your wave
and tidal energy / praise your
#oceanoptimism & Ocean
Elders /praise

your capacity
for echo
location / our names for you /
that translate
into creation stories
& song maps
tasi & kai & tai & moana nui & vasa &
tahi & lik & wai tui & daob & wonsolwara /
praise

your capacity
for communion /
praise our common heritage /
praise our pathway
& promise to each other / praise
our endless saga / praise our most powerful
metaphor / praise this vision
of belonging / praise your horizon
of care / praise our blue planet,
one world ocean / praise our trans-oceanic
past, present & future flowing
through our blood /

* As frases são citadas ou inspiradas em diversos intelectuais e poetas, incluindo Epeli Hauʻofa, Derek Walcott, Elizabeth DeLoughrey, Rob Wilson, Peter Neill, Sylvia Earle, Édouard Glissant, e Albert Wendt. As palavras cantadas são as palavras para o oceano em várias línguas do Pacífico. A epígrafe é do poema de Brenda Hillman, “O Oceano Pacífico”, do seu livro Practical Water (Wesleyan University Press, 2009), 26. O produto marinho bruto do oceano é de 2,5 trilhões de dólares.