Mother Earth's Retribution

By Vijay Kumar

Like pests 

You’ve multiplied and invaded

Like armies of locust  

You’ve paraded

Your voracity and naked intent 

To devour and rend 

Any pasture, forest or mountain

Brook, lake or fountain 

Offered by me 

My bosom you savaged 

Like a mother who’s trust, 

You damaged 

By stealing, 

What I, with love did offer

Like craven debauches 

Out to pillage my coffer 

My heart you broke 

Drove pylons deeper into my gut

Built uglier and taller than you could see,

Then preen endlessly 

Your numbers grew 

Apocalypse drew 

Didn’t take time

For greed to replace need

Then faded the kettle-drum beat 

Rose a frenzied cacophony 

Decended a disturbing disequilibrium  

Listen, I’m telling you something… 

That drought

Those floods 

Those deaths

That devastation 

You heard? 

Those are approaching signals

Of more death and retribution  

Like a bad neighbour

Who encroaches, then usurps 

Or a petulant child  

Who sulks, then freeloads     

You forgot, 

That I owe you none

Lost on you, 

Are care and responsibility 

You so lack a regulative ability 

I understand, 

You need your essentials 

But they’ve so bourgeoned

And you earned strange credentials 

Of excessive privilege 

And nihilistic patronage 

Besides most of you 

Are such moronics 

Just can’t think past, 

Your clichéd histrionics 

The ones who attempt to self-regulate

Are too few and too feeble to moderate 

The rest are too ignorant 

And will just never get it  

In somnolence they will, 

Live out their days 

Then to death, 

Be swept with the waves 

Or be crushed by the quakes

If the fires leave any, in its wake

Your placards and policies 

Are simply too late 

I’m afraid the temperatures will rise 

And have waters in spate 

You will either burn 

Or end in a watery grave 

I think it’s past me 

To lend you a hand to save

I’m afraid, the fires will rage 

I’m afraid, your fate is grave

Your obsession,

With your race, religion and hateful politics

You’ve lost your way in petty antics 

In vacous notions of wealth and power

You’ve brought upon yourself this hour

Your unending petulant cries of, 

My need, My need

Are sheer avarice indeed   

You’ve looked for enemies 

Where their were none

Eager to wage war

To subjugate some

Now I’m the real enemy 

Will wreck devastation, 

That’s just begun 

Let’s see if you can 

Wage a real war

To undo your ills 

Have you the will to spar?  

You stole without guilt or shame 

Of sharemarkets and wealth games 

Of men with riches, 

Proclaimed successes 

What have they got me?

Only taken 

Ripped my cover   

Mined wounds deep into my innards 

Then presented grand canards 

Of Accords and Earth-Hours

As if it’s made a difference 

Your carbon credits, my green-cover

Your mere self indulgence 

What good is it to me? 

If you travel a billion light years

Or colonize the Mars 

When you couldn’t rid 

Your own Earth, of scars  

Like a wanton son, 

Abandoning his dying mother 

To yet charade elsewhere, 

As conqueror of another

You’ve ravaged my body,

Pillaged my soul 

With empty words 

Of sustainable goals

I do not know, 

If change anything, you can   

I’m afraid, now you may be done, 

My man

By Vijay Kumar