The Water Guardians
Updated: Sep 4
Keita Whitten 2026 Bowdoin, ME
I arrived at Friendship’s shores in 1996.
From Bedford-Stuyvesant to
Friendship, Maine—
an exodus North
toward something new.
Yemaya called me here—
to a place I had never been,
to begin again.
Like the moon—
I was full.
I was expecting.
A mother-to-be,
searching for safety,
searching for security.
During my morning rituals
of homage at her shore,
Yémaya witnessed me.
Between whispers of surf,
I heard her speak—
Paper mills.
Shoe factories.
Carcinogens released
into the water.
Rivers once trusted.
Food turned to poison.
Neighbors falling ill.
What wounds the water
wounds the body.
What wounds the body
wounds the generations.
And my soul
grieved.
Years later,
the waters called me back.
Along the Downeast coast
and the shores of Penobscot Bay,
I gathered what the tide returned—
Driftwood.
Shells.
Glass.
And through the waters,
I was carried further—
To the Chocoe people,
sailing Pajaro Jai
from Panama,
seeking wisdom
for homelands threatened
by logging and poisoned waters.
Further—
to the water protectors
at Standing Rock.
Further—
to Wabanaki grandmothers
who have guarded these waters
across generations.
Further still—
to Maine families
who can no longer eat
what they catch.
Each a fragment
carrying its own story—
gathered,
listened to,
assembled into art.
Into Guardians who watch over us and gather the collective prayers of our grandmothers.
And art, like water, like Grandmothers, remembers-
Art mourns
with the people.
Art asks us
to protect what remains,
to live
as good stewards,
to become
better ancestors—
the next wave
of watchers.
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