The Things Of My Sadness (Ecology-Relating) Poem by Bijay Kant Dubey

I used to grow sad and pensive
When I saw the vultures unable to fly
Which I wanted to catch and bring
But who was to help me
When I was a child?

When the race horses were abandoned
And the shows closed down
And the horse-carriages were stopped
As for the tri-wheeler autorickshaws,
I felt sad and morose
When I saw the asses lying left out on the roads
To die in harness as for the washer men left them
For the Landry and the washing machines.

Again to my surprise I saw the tiger cubs brought to
The forest department bungalow
And the tiger kept in a cage
Those events had an impact on my mind
But once while passing through the hills
I saw the porcupines at the foothills
But could see them again
As the tribals hunted them down one by one.

Again it saddened me to see that a wild cat by my house hid it
But the tribal people came they with bows and arrows
And struck the sulking wild fishing cat,
Again I saw at the railway platform the house sparrows
Sitting in a plenty on a small tree at the platform
And the cat trying to catch to eat in full
As the thatched cottages and mud-houses lessened enough
To render them houseless to be left to their poor destitute.

My sadness deepened it when I read about the cheetah
Dotted with the spots and tear-eyed near eye-sockets
Depleted from India and I really felt sorry for,
The blue birds and golden orioles and snow owls
I searched them, searched them to see
Visiting the orchards and bushes.

Sometimes again turn I sad when I see the carcasses of golden jackals
Howling like some men, calling and yelling,
The mongoose lying dead and crushed under the wheels on the highway
For the traffic passing and transportation,
When I see the wooden pigeons and woodpeckers killed or struck down,
But what to do, what to do, this is life, life.

What it is more depressing is this that the hills have been denuded,
These lie bereft of boulders and chunks of rocks,
The hills have been blasted and broken and hammered to boulders
And stone chunks and chips in stone crushers
Where tuberculosis grips the wage-earners and labouers,
When I see the orchards and bowers cleared of trees,
Birds chirp and twitter it not to our pleasure.