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A Sonnet at the Edge of the Reef is about the careful dance of sharing our love of the natural world with the next generation while holding back--just for a little bit longer--the most sobering truths of the climate crisis.
Craig Santos Perez’s tender and expansive poetry walks us alongside a family’s visit to the Waikīkī Aquarium and back home, snuggled up in a warm familial embrace. Lyrical vocal lines with embellishing flourishes express the delicacy and beauty of the coral ecosystem, while shimmering motives in the piano depict sunlight on the water’s surface and the gentle movement of ocean life. A Sonnet at the Edge of the Reef was commissioned by Mirror Visions Ensemble and premiered on May 1, 2023 in New York City. |
A Sonnet at the Edge of the Reef
by Craig Santos Perez from Habitat Threshold We dip our hands into the outdoor reef exhibit and touch sea cucumber and red urchin as butterflyfish swim by. A docent explains: once a year, after the full moon, when tides swell to a certain height, and saltwater reaches the perfect temperature, only then will the ocean cue coral polyps to spawn, in synchrony, a galaxy of gametes, which dances to the surface, fertilizes, opens, forms larvae, roots to seafloor, and grows, generation upon generation. At home, we read a children’s book, The Great Barrier Reef, to our daughter snuggling between us in bed. We don’t mention corals bleaching, reared in labs, or frozen. And isn’t our silence, too, a kind of shelter? |