The Last One Standing …

alone on this barren land,
not a brother by my side;
all gone, all slaughtered,
as slowly, they were pried.
nourished by our Mother,
tall and proud, we stood;
till the thought of another,
felt us nothing but wood.

a moment, all that it took,
to push us down and out;
nowhere to go, helpless,
no one to hear our shouts.
our Mother showed wrath,
thunder born of her voice,
rained Her endless tears,
dried lands without choice.

yet all warnings unheeded,
as Man went about his way,
uprooting us all, one by one,
he’ll live to regret it one day.
now I am the last standing,
their destruction complete,
the last of an age of green,
in a forest of wan concrete.

Shared with Poetry Pantry, dVerse Open Link Night and One Single Impression

This post is also a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda

(’12, Dec 09)

Poetry & writing to me are to me, a breath of fresh air in a life that is sometimes covered by the smoke of sorrow or self doubt. They also become the sweets I share to celebrate when life offers me a reason to. But most of all, they are to me, my life. For each word I write is a piece of my heart, a thought that just had to find its way into the world.

76 thoughts on “The Last One Standing …”

    • Yes, I hope we realize it too, Rashmi. Else it will be regretful one day, and that day will come too soon for us to take. Thank you for finding the poem to be excellent.

    • Yes, a voice that must be heard, and must be heard quickly before it becomes true, and only one tree is left. Development shouldn’t be at the cost of cutting the greenery. Thanks, Mary.

  14. “The land vomits out its inhabitants” – I believe one of the biblical “abominations” is deforestation. I wish we would learn how to live in the trees with the trees.

    • Well, Mother Nature is kind too, so if we repent and start taking steps to save her, she’ll smile upon us again too. So we have to take the right steps. Glad you liked my poem, Akshay 😉 Thanks!

  20. We are not there yet, but we are very close. And by the time we break out of our shell of denial, it’ll be too late.

    I’ll quote myself from the summary of ‘Home’ that I wrote:
    And if you aren’t scared enough, here’s food for thought: The Permafrost methane time bomb. In Siberia and Alaska, the ground is actually an ice layer trapping huge amounts of methane which is a 20 times stronger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. So if this cover melts, there will be irreversible greenhouse effect and then life on Earth will be doomed. We have only 10 years to stop this from happening. We need to act FAST. It really is too late to be a pessimist. And there is hope. Alternate fuel sources (like solar, wind and hydro energy) are being harvested.

    It’s time to uproot the ignorance in our minds rather than vegetation on our Earth.

  28. Wow! Absolutely brilliant! A wake-up call to humans to stop deforestation is presented in such a beautiful way. Yes, mother Earth has given us enough of signals that tell us that we have taken her for granted and destroyed her in numerous ways. It’s now high time to stop the abuse, and set things right before she strikes back in a brutal manner which we might not be able to endure.

  34. There’s a Malayalam proverb which, roughly translated, means “It’s not enough that you have eyes, you have to see.” The destruction of nature is something that happens right in front of us, yet we let it go unseen. We realize the value of things only when we lose them, but by that time it’s too late. We cannot afford to let that happen with Mother Earth.

    This beautiful poem echoed all this and much more. The last two lines were really striking – loved the contrast in them, especially the usage “forest of wan concrete.” Brilliant work! 🙂

    • Yeah. I know of the proverb, and it is so true. A little too late, and it might not come back. We can’t afford that.

      I’m glad you liked the poem and what it spoke of. Thanks, Zainab 🙂

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