nuclear war

Oh, how weeps Mother Earth!

Near her toes, the forests burn.
Animals in death throes churn.
Sumatran anacondas die.
Smoke blinds the eye.
Hazy skies, poison air
People choke.
Life comes to a halt.

Brazil, her lungs they say,
Now fiery flames breathe.
With so much smoke,
Will Mother Earth choke?

Oh, how weeps Mother Earth!

Young blood is spilt as
Fire and
Water injure and
Kill.
The elements that give us life
Have now been weaponized.

‘People fight for their rights.’

When will they stop the hate?
This endless fight?
This endless stress?

Governments democratize?
Violation of rules?
Laws broken?

Who made the laws? Who made the rules?

Violence. Hatred. Pain.
What does Mother Earth gain?

Oh, how weeps Mother Earth!

Some allow guns to stay.
Kill anytime they please.
No laws can hold them back.
The land of the mad man attacks.

Oh, how weeps Mother Earth!

As she watches her children kill
Each other at their will.
Burdensome her heart grows.
She writhes in the throes of pain
Flames borne of hate, violence and greed.
Her entrails burn as the land is ‘cleaned’.

For who?
For what?
For Future?

Does Mother Earth have a future?

Or, will she annihilate
As mankind lays waste
Humanity, plants — all life
For wealth.
Is there no end?

If the mushroom cloud flares up,
All will die under a cancerous sky.

Will there be a Mother Earth left to weep?

Or just lifeless debris… floating in an endless dark space…

Mitali Chakravarty’s poetry has appeared online, as part of two anthologies, ‘In Reverie’ (2016) and ‘An Anthology of Indian Poetry in English’ (1984). She has published a humorous book of essays on living in China where she spent eight years, ‘In the Land of Dragons’ (2014); translated a short story, ‘Full Circle’, by the erstwhile Nabendu Ghosh, a Bengali writer and Bollywood scriptwriter, which was published in a collection called ‘That Bird Called Happiness ‘(2018). She had numerous bylines in The Times of India, Hindustan Times and The Statesman in the 1980s up to 1992. She has been reviewing books, translating, doing interviews and writing essays for kitaab.org from 2017. This April, she joined kitaab.org as the editor. She blogs at 432m.wordpress.com. She is working on her first two novels and  translating another novella by Nabendu Ghosh from Bengali to English. 


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