Digging Into Our Future

Sreekumar K 

Tremors and tremors, not from quakes

Gods never do this to us, they love us

Kids are thrilled and laugh out the blast

They haven't been taught to spell ‘undermining’

 

Grandma’s home on a hilltop

The rolling hill and the meadows 

Now a ditch, gaping like a scoured out eye

A very deep one, long dead and buried deep

And reincarnated as a city

In some unknown land 

Where our children might go

To reckon alien wealth for them

And bring home the leftover, if any

 

Water was the first one to be frightened

And disappeared through the cracks underground

And the wind came all covered in a dusty overall

Left a teary note in our eyes

The fire we could not hold on to

Got tamed by them to turn the earth inside out

Burst out in anger from the rock quarries,

Or was it sobbing over our plight?

 

The sky is cordoned off for us

Their children play with their toys there

It still sheds ritual tears on us 

Tears that make our skin swelter 

And our crops wilt and wither 

The sun has aged in our place

And hides behind an orange veil

 

Only the earth stays around 

And manages to give us 

What we might even die for

We know it is only feeding us

With slow poison to speed up our end

They bribe it to do this

Providing it with meat 

That even vultures won’t touch.

Ours.