The Jaime David Podcast – Episode 18: The Dome

Episode 18 of The Jaime David Podcast is out now!

Read the original post here:

The Dome

Listen to the episode on Spotify:

See the episode transcript below:

Intro:

Hey everyone, this is Jaime David, and welcome back to The Jaime David Podcast. Today we’re diving into one of my longer, more personal works — a poem called “The Dome.” This poem holds a special place for me because it was the very first poem I ever submitted to a contest. Even though it wasn’t accepted, the whole experience, and the story behind it, really meant a lot. So, I want to share that background with you before we jump into the poem and then have a deeper discussion about it.

Background Discussion:

So, about a month before I wrote this poem, I was just casually browsing YouTube when I came across a video by a channel called DarkDocs. The video was titled “Is America’s Own Chernobyl Sitting In The Middle of the Ocean.” It really opened my eyes to a hidden environmental disaster — the Runit Dome in the Marshall Islands. This dome is essentially a concrete vault that holds radioactive waste from nuclear tests done decades ago. The problem is, with sea levels rising due to climate change, this dome is leaking or at risk of leaking radiation into the ocean, threatening not only the Marshallese people but potentially the entire world’s oceans.

Then, I saw another related video in the suggestions by ABC News, which covered the ongoing impact of this dome on the Marshallese community. One of the people they featured was Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, a poet from the Marshall Islands who read a moving poem at the UN Climate Summit back in 2014. Her work inspired me a lot, so I followed her social media and found out about a book project she was involved in — a collection of scientific articles and poems about climate relocation and climate crisis. That’s when I decided to submit my own poem for the contest.

Fast forward to today, the poem wasn’t accepted for the book, but the editors told me they appreciated my excerpt and had a huge number of submissions. Even though I didn’t make it into the book, I’m sharing the full poem here because the message is so important — about climate change, about human impact, about responsibility — and I hope it resonates with you as much as it does with me.

Poem Section (casual lead-in):

Now, the poem itself is one of my longer pieces. It’s raw, emotional, and full of urgency, and I think it captures the complex mix of hope, despair, and responsibility we all feel when we think about climate change and environmental disaster. Let’s dive in.

Bikini Atoll;

They were told

The US were protectors

Of hope

And of freedom.

Instead, they were relo-

-cated from their homes

While their atolls

Were bombarded with radiation,

Which had took a toll

On them and their souls,

And the remains of it all

Were buried underneath a dome

That is called “The Tomb.”

How ironic it’s name is, so,

Because the Runit Dome

Has the potential

To become their own tombs.

With sea level rising,

It’s becoming a crisis

That if the radiation finds its

Way out, it could

Completely poison

The entire Earth’s oceans,

And this is because of the

Changing Earth’s climate!

Is there any hope for us to survive this

Disastrous threat that could possibly annihilate us?

I’d say there is, but we need to realize this:

For us to survive it,

We all need to rise up and

Take a stand for what’s right, which

Is saving the entire planet

From total destruction.

It may sound bleak; it may sound alarmist,

But I believe we all can grow and thrive despite this!

That is why I, a mere man who writes this,

An artist with a creative mind that is

Concerned about the state of the world and this climactic climate crisis,

Had decided to sit down and take the time to write this.

I wrote this poem

Because I care about my home.

I care about the loved ones that I call my own.

I wrote this for my friends; my family, too!

I wrote this for their friends, and their families, too!

I wrote this for everyone; everyone that’s in the room;

The room that is so big and so round and so blue;

The room that has oceans that spans millions of miles;

The room that has a diversity of creatures both on land and in the sea;

The room that has been around for billions of years;

The room that houses a species that has accomplished many great feats, but has also caused a myriad of tragedies that led countless people to defeat;

The room that I’m proud to call planet Earth.

I was not asked to be born on this Earth,

But it is my place; the place of my birth.

It sorta just happened; one day I was conceived.

I grew to a fetus, then a baby, and then eventually an adult human being.

It was a slow process; just like humanity’s growth on this Earth for thousands of years.

We started out in caves, and eventually made great things.

Along the way, we also had created

Devastating weapons that can harm us and hurt us in many ways.

The same goes with climate change; it’s mostly man-made.

It is a mess that we ourselves had made.

The consequences are dire; the Earth is on fire.

But if we take a stand now, I believe we’ll survive this!

The Earth is our home; it is our dome.

It is the one thing that should come above all!

Just as the dome

Located in the Enewetak Atoll

Has the potential

To destroy us all,

We too have the potential;

The potential to be saviors

For not just the here and now,

But for future generations.

That is why I had wrote this poem.

So if you see this message, please heed the urgency

To do something about this climactic climate emergency

That could lead to insurgency

Of disastrous natural convergency

That could inadvertently lead

To extreme diathermancy

And create great divergency.

We must fight this looming threat, and we must do so with great fervency,

For it is this Earth that we love with great ardency!

We must stand up and fight, and must do so without errancy.

We must not treat this threat as a mere nonemergency.

We must respect this planet with great amounts of conservancy,

And clean up this world with great levels of detergency.

This our home; the home that we were grown.

This Earth is our dome, and this is its poem!

Post-Poem Analysis & Reflection:

Alright, so what can we unpack here? The poem starts with Bikini Atoll, which was the site of devastating U.S. nuclear tests. The people there were forcibly relocated with promises of protection and freedom, only to suffer radiation exposure and loss of their homeland — a literal human tragedy buried under what’s called the “Tomb” or the Runit Dome.

That dome, as the poem highlights, is now a ticking time bomb because climate change is raising sea levels and threatening to release radiation into the oceans. This isn’t just a local problem — it’s a global crisis. The oceans are the lifeblood of our planet, and poisoning them could lead to catastrophic consequences for ecosystems and humanity alike.

But the poem doesn’t just stop at describing the disaster. It’s a call to action — a plea for us all to rise up, to take responsibility, and to fight for the Earth, our only home. It reminds us that while the situation may sound bleak, there is hope if we come together and act with urgency and care.

I also love how the poem personalizes this — not just as a distant environmental issue, but as something that touches families, communities, all of us. The Earth isn’t just a place; it’s our home, a dome that shelters us all. And like the Runit Dome, what we do to it can either save us or destroy us.

This poem was my way of processing the climate crisis and expressing my deep concern — and I think that’s something we all need to do. Reflect on what’s happening, and then ask ourselves: What can we do? How can I be part of the solution?

So, thanks for joining me for this episode. If this poem speaks to you, I encourage you to learn more about climate change, share your thoughts, and get involved however you can. Until next time, I’m Jaime David, and this was The Jaime David Podcast. Stay aware, stay active, and take care of our home.