The Earth responds

• On World Environment Day commemorated on 5 June

By Surya Vishwa

Humans,

You creatures,

Who assign so much importance to yourselves,

I am aware

That yesterday

You commemorated

Yet again

A day

One of many

A day you designed

And named

For Me

I am aware

You call it Environment Day

And on April 22

That you have created

Yet another day

One day

Among your many others

A day

Where you actually call me

By name

Earth Day

To honour me

To dip your hands

In twenty-four hours and wash

My blood that you shed

Off your hands

I guess I am to be placated

To be thankful

And bow my head

As you do to your politicians

That you remember

Me

On these days

Where you take some respite,

An interlude

From your masquerade

As the masters of my body

And act the act of the guardian

For just a day

But listen,

I do not need your false sentiments

I do not owe you

Like you owe your mafia men

Your politicians

Your industrialists

The architects of your ruin

And mine

I am not your slave

My existence is not dependent on you

Yours depend on me

I do not need your petty hypocrisy

Your meaningless

Commemoration

Your empty

Words

Now as you are being nailed in

One by one, in your thousands,

Into your coffin

That you call ‘development’

Which you launched so grandly

On my space,

Polluting it

Poisoning it

Making me a deathbed

Of your discoveries

The so-called crown

Of your progress

Your sciences

Of mass destruction

With which you murder me

And mine

And yours

Daily

Hourly

Every minute

And remain still blind

And deaf and dumb

And attempt to bribe me

With a day

A meaningless dedication

With which you fool yourself

As you dig your grave

On my body

Remember

You fools

As you continue to your end

That it is you who will perish

It is your extinction

That you now stare in the mirror

Of my face

That you see in the seas and river

Your extinction

Is as murky as you see in the reflection

That looks back at you

You are the horror 

That you see

The horror that you have made

Through your grand illusion

That parades as the saviour

The wolf that hunts

My other children

That gags them

With the stink

Of your greed,

The fumes of your luxuries

The carcasses of your technologies.

The seeping poison of your erudition

Scorching their homes

Uprooting them from my heart

All in the name of

Your progeny, your survival

I have waited,

My anger has been sporadic

But I waited

For you to awaken

From the nightmare

Of your modernity

That is now crushing you

Yet you do not realise

Even now, you do not

As you turn even my wrath

Into an industry

Of money

Making

Lies

The blindfold

That you have manufactured

Is still wrapped around your eyes

Even now

You do not admit

That you are not the masters

You do not realise that my anger

Can outdo your lies

Your weapons 

Your excuses to murder

And dominate

Your obsession

With the monopoly of nations and people

Modern man, listen,

Even as you now gasp

Your last breath,

Listen as I tell you

That you are naïve

You are naïve and young

And insolent

You do not realise your youth

You are infants

Your science are playthings

Dangerous playthings as all playthings are

For infants

I am the monarch of time

You are the brief

Rustle

The insignificant

Minute

In the clock of my mind

Yet in these minutes

The disasters you have engineered are deadly

But I waited

For the sake of your ancestors

My long ago departed children

Who I loved

Who were truly of me and mine

Their tears falling upon me as rain

I waited

I can wait no more

The time has come

For this long minute to end

But one day

There will be others

Who will emerge from this end

To a new beginning

They who will rise

From your ashes

And learn 

Through their own fate.

The difference 

Between wisdom 

And arrogance 

The difference 

Between need 

And greed