Let the blood orange of the sunset

remind us—

each day has its dusk,

each dusk, a quiet triumph.

To survive the day

is to become a mosaic of all we’ve endured.

 

A young boy lingers between tides,

caught in the liminal shimmer

of dusk-lit water.

A wave swells behind him—

a crashing echo of the daily storm:

the silent stress of language brokering,

the ache of uncertainty.

 

He does not always know the words—

but still, he swims.

He rides the break of fear,

crashes through doubt,

for the love of his family.

 

Yet the water ahead seeps in like truth:

this task, this inherited bridge of voices,

is not a single crossing—

but a lifetime of tides.

A duty that stretches far past childhood,

past classrooms and waiting rooms,

past “just one more time.”

 

He stands waist-deep in the current,

draped in his denim jacket,

school uniform damp with purpose.

These are not just clothes—

they are armor, threaded with memory.

In them, he has stood still

and spoken for those who could not.

Built bridges from whispers.

​

He did not choose this sea,

but he chooses how to float in it—

how to breathe through the undertow.

And though the water rises,

he never sinks.

 

He is both sailor and storm,

interpreter and anchor—

a boy turned vessel;

carrying his people through the waves.