World Nature Conservation Day - A Poem

In a pasture full of greens
A cow grazes, a bird preens.
The clean air soothes,
And their chirping heals.
The grass sways, 
And nearby a stream
Flows around a victorious fish
I ask myself
Is this a dream?

Across the mountain,  
Is the scorched desert,
With Cactus, Camels and heaps of Sand,
Once perhaps a pasture of greens
Now different in heat, color and strand
There’s oil below and money above,
Which you choose, is what you love.
Different strokes for different folk
That’s the way the earth was built
Life is made from a destroyed yolk
It’s taken away, but there’s no guilt.

And so we learnt
To destroy to build…
A birdcage, a zoo
With steel and mass
Concrete and glass.
But as we built, we also destroyed
The cactus, camels and the sand
The pond, the stream, and the land

Now what remains is Conservation day
Once a year, it comes around.
We write and speak, and sing out loud
But sadly, cover the same old ground…
As the cactus, camels and the sand
The pond, the stream, and the land
Wither away without a sound.
Conservation should be every day,
If we don’t want to be buried
Underground...