In 2010 we took our first trip to the Philippines to Boracay Island. This is the poem I wrote to capture the place and the people and the experience of snorkelling.
Different Worlds
The day is sunny and hot in the Philippines
Not as oppressive as a sauna
but more so than an apartment with no air conditioning.
We twelve wade out to the catamaran 50 meters from shore
holding high our towels and knapsacks as azure blue laps at our knees.
The rickety stepladder sways to the rhythm of the water,
So we carefully mount, flanked by Filipinos extended hands.
"It's hot," I say. "Almost unbearably so."
Four men with dark skin and hair and friendly smiles
take their positions having done this a thousand times.
But this is our first so we chatter "This is so cool!" and
"I'm so glad we waited for good weather."
The sound of the engine suddenly drowns our musings,
As it backs out of the shallow water of Boracay.
The sails flick into the wind;
Securing our bright orange well-worn life preservers,
Someone asks my oldest, "Isn't this fun?"
She interrupts her singing long enough to smile and nod her flopping braids.
The wind is intense on the Sibuyan Sea.
I hold my hat with one hand and the boat with the other.
Our group laughs at the sea spray soaking us.
My youngest holds tight to the boat, his blue eyes squinting.
Arriving at an uninhabited island, we wade in.
The sand underfoot is brown and rough.
The palm trees and beach welcome us.
In the quiet, only a few straw huts sit about empty.
At a lookout, high waves are crashing on the windward side of the island.
I breathe in the deep blue of the water and the foamy white of the caps and spray.
The breeze threatens to snatch my sarong and hand it to the ocean as a gift.
I clutch it tighter.
Off again to snorkel the coral reef. My first time.
The kids are brave and excited to snorkel for real;
My husband wonders aloud what we'll see "down there"
Leaps in and begins drifting away, discovering the sea’s treasure.
I carefully secure my mask and breathing tube then jump feet first.
The rich sapphire water embraces me, warm and refreshing.
My lips wrap the breathing tube tightly.
I attune only to respiration - In. . . out. . .
all sounds of the world above are blocked.
I blink.
I've entered another world.
We are visitors - or invaders, in the case of our anchor wedged in the coral below.
It is simply our privilege to view life teeming beneath our floating human vessels.
Brown, green, blue coral, black spikey sea urchins, Nemos and Dories,
Near the bottom, a school of fish swim upright like floating seaweed.
Someone spots a blue starfish and we fin over to admire it.
No need to swim here, the current takes us from one coral to another.
Fish with neon colors swim alone while others swim as a school.
We had no idea this world was under our very noses.
I muse about the existence of these widely diverse worlds
and their thin dividing membrane.
Lift my head to a world of sails and ships and coke bottles marking waterways,
A world of poverty, 16 hour days, threats of war.
Lower my head - Triton's world of coral, fish, seaweed, starfish, and urchins.
Head up - creatures breathe air for oxygen.
Head down - creatures breathe water.
Head up - airplanes, boat engines, men mumbling at a distance.
Head down - water, only muffled water.
I wonder if this is what it is like to enter the world of souls.
Head down - earth, land, sea, and sky.
Head up -
Who knows?
