PLANTS’ PLAINTS

Oh! It is enough.
Ah! It is too much.
Ouch! It is beyond forbearance.
O the senseless, insensible humans
Have pity on us.
Don’t exploit us any more
Don’t jab us any more
Don’t chop us any more
Don’t cut us any more
Don’t fell us any more
Don’t uproot us any more
Don’t kill us any more
Don’t cripple us any more
Don’t saw us any more
Don’t torture us any more
Don’t stifle us any more
Don’t petrify us any more
Don’t flummox us any more
Don’t bewilder and befuddle us any more…..

All of you know well
We don’t have animals’ feet to run, dodge  and escape
The wings of the birds to flit, flutter, fly and evade
The fins and scales of the fishes to swim, dive and save.

Again, in our cavillous, paralyzing and dying throes
We can’t shriek, scream and squirm like you
Squall, cavort or caper like a bird
Yell, squeal, yip and wriggle like a beast
To convey our grievance and our distress
To grumble, groan, resent, remonstrate and demonstrate
To attract or snatch attention
To steal or win over sympathy
To politicize the matter
For our survival against our premature, reluctant genocide!

Thus, we are helpless and forlorn
Totally, at the disposal of your mercy.

Don’t you know
We are your only unpaid benefactors
Your well-wishers, caretakers and saviours?

We protect and help you in a million ways:
We are your vital lungs
We fill your bellies
Furnish you with clothings
Provide shelters
Care your countless illnesses
Run the Cycles of Nature
Ensure all requisites for your smooth survival.

Still, you never heed to our pain
For, we make not our agony vociferous like others
Yet, we feel the same pangs like them
We bewail after being wounded, bereaved or slaughtered.

Volumes in varied forms are written on us
Awareness programmes are staged across the globe
Van- Mahotsavs are observed ostensibly every year
Billions are splurged on the Govt-NGO organizations
But, alas, to no avail!
For, you are self-centric and heartless
Avarice has turned you altogether blind, deaf and dumb
Beckoning your own destruction and the Planet’s as well…..

But, it is our last endeavour
To convince you and persuade
To make you feel the gravity of your goof
The intensity and monstrosity of its ends.

Now it is upto you O impoverished, audacious and frenzied mortals
To plant, protect and nourish us;
To thing for the mutual welfare,
Or, to perish along with all forever and forever……

©Shankar D Mishra     17.02.2018