My Thoughts Go Back To India Poem by Raymond Farrell

Today
As I sit
Under the locust tree
The stifling heat
Takes my thoughts back
To the months
I spent in India
The reality of the third world
Which I have lived
In various parts of
Is the reality
Of the vast majority
Of the world's population
To go to bed hungry
Is their reality
I remember
Exiting my compound
Early morning
To see corpses
Being loaded
Into the back
Of a truck
People I knew
Who the day before
Had greeted me
Living their lives
Homeless
And dying
Alone
On the pavement
Of a dirty back street
I recall
The rows of tin shacks
Along the railway line
Where chidren played
And everyone defecated
All were friendly
The children went to school
And slowly
Many were ascending
Out of the squalor
Obtaining an education
And jobs
Rising up
To become middle class
No one I spoke to
Whined and complained
It was a shock to me
Coming from the West
Where everyone
Has a sense of entitlement
And lives in
The lap of luxury
Comparatively speaking
In truth
Much of the prosperity
Seen across the West
The cheap goods
And nonessentials
People crave and demand
Are a result
Of third world exploitation
But it is clear now
That one day the boot
Will be on the other foot
And those in the third world
Who largely do not support
The moral perversions
Extravagance and cultural norms
On the rise across the West
Will bring a day of reckoning
To Western Culture
That has sold
Its birthright
For a mess of pottage.