BLEEDING EARTH: award winner

BLEEDING EARTH: award winner


Gone are the days when verdant hue
Covered my hills and plains.
Gone are the days when rains fed the
Rich soil in my bosom.

The woods are gone, the trees no more
Protect me from onslaught
Of winds and storms and chemicals,
That man has dumped on me.

I feel dry inside, depleted
Are my water reserves.
My lips are parched, my skin is cracked,
My mountain snow is gone.

Not only me but all of my
Children too have been starved.
So many plants and animals
Are already extinct.

My temperature is rising.
My fever won’t subside,
Unless man retraces his steps,
And heals my bleeding wounds.

With pain in heart and worried eyes,
I can see the future.
Man is causing my death as well
As his own suicide.



• Written in 8-6-8-6 format.

• Awarded second prize in the ‘ Oddities & Novelties-The Contest, "Oddities & Novelties-The Contest", where the prompt was a picture of an eye in the background of what looks like parched, cracking ground. This appeared to be a pained and pleading look from mother earth.

* Earlier it was posted as entry no. 488674 in "SCIENCE, MEDICAL, LAW, HUMOR, CHILDREN" 


M C Gupta
17 February 2007