This Little Light of Mine

Somewhere south of this symbolic line I’m straddling as I write, someone was singing a starbeam to life. It tumbled forth from a voice that had known the suppression of its range, piercing the treacherous night of enslavement like a blazing arrow, traveling ahead and ahead and ahead of itself to fuel the torches that were the voices glowing up a path for civil rights. It journeys on, flashing against the sleekness of the humpbacks’ soaked skin, sluicing down their ear canals to seep into the massive folds of brain matter where it pools in the place of memory of their own shadow time, when their relatives and ancestors were also exploited in the name of light. But we are alive and not silenced now, the whales and I, and this song of the centuries that I bring to them is their jam. They move with particular joy to this one every time; I can see their appreciation for the most profound levels of balm stashed inside such a simple, repetitive tune. The affirmation of self-worth, the insistence on exhibiting radiance, on showing up luminous in the face of brutality hit home for them as they traverse these waters so recently tainted with crude oil. They sixth-sense the sadness from which I’ve dredged the song this day, and move closer to fortify me as I wield this power tool for my own uplift and theirs. With each note and the buzz I feel from the proximity of their auras my voice is steadily clearer, increasingly brimming with conviction. And we are so in sync that when the song is coming to its close they know, because they know, and they begin to dive, waving their tails in gratitude, in love, in departure, like a socially-distanced high-five. They’re taking it down with them, my message to all the ocean dwellers, from their dense and blubbery relatives to the wispy bioluminescent beings of the abyss: shine. Despite the oil and the plastic, despite the fishing lines and the sonar and the dead zones, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine. Your light is the truth, and the way back to balance.