Climate Crisis in My (Un)known Dream

(1)

 

A giant human shadow on earth

Engulfs the ocean and cloud

Remains arid now heavy hearted

Angel there praying for light.

 

Mother sitting in the sun.

In the kitchen she cooks something

She stands still, tap is on

Basin is clogged, water soon

Floods our planet.

 

Star dust around her face,

My son playing in the backyard

Fears the shadow, I say

It is your granny, look.

 

Mother comes down now sits

In the air right beside my boy.

In the kitchen she moves and

Cries, no sound, I see her chop

A big onion, and no one is there

Outside my son and mother.

 

 

(2)

 

A coffin

We were only two

The main door was closed.

 

Indoor that goes to other room

Stood alone,

No path, before us, a wall

We saw everything through.

 

The earth was shaking now from inside

Soon maybe, soon wave would explode,

 

The disaster, the homeless people

Wandering under the sky

 

The earth looked dull,

The climate was so indomitable.

 

Someone said, stay, you are safe there.

Climate Injustice

1

(The Cyclone)

 

An owl cries for her baby.

Dead body is found nowhere.

The storm again is a good

Killer of unborn dreams.

 

My father mourns for the tree.

The trunk lies on the ground,

Sleeps and soon will die.

 

He planted it years ago.

 

 

2

(The Wildfire)

 

Heaven now turns hell.

Wildfire burns the feathers

Of the parrot, now she crawls,

Crawls to breathe a little more,

 

Fire growls behind the tail.

Death waves before fatigued eyes,

Yet she hopes to live again.

 

 

3

(The Drought)

 

Sun is trying to burn

The scalps of my parents

In the paddy land.

They wonder if the sweat

Acted like the water.

 

A little white cloud turns

Into a canopy over their

Shoulders, but mother wants it

To be fierce and to pour in the land as rain.

 

 

4

(The Poverty)

 

Salt water strangles the crops,

Makes us starve and my

Old granny will die

Soon of hunger.