The Return Gift

O’friends moving on bikes

cars and foot, if you have ears

listen: the city cracks and croaks

beep-beep, stop this mad rush
stand, slow down your pace

else you’ll be lost

never to be found again.

The proud skyscrapers
concrete steel and glass
without a blade of grass
the blind-eyed stars

blink at your arrogant dare.

Forests are no more dark

or deep with green mystery

hot air chokes the lungs,

the foamy gutters, bald yards

the billowing chimney, acid gas

the black soot showers are

our return gifts to nature,

poison to her sustaining bowers.

Our studies, research, inventions

are a Frankenstein monster

will devour us into its maws

mocking our suicidal wisdom.

Beware now and change
look afresh at your own game.


Sabita Sahu