Void Poem by Dann Thomas

Church doors are shut, the temples bells are silenced,
and no call beckons from the tall minarets.
It's just another virus, coo the pigeons,
They'll soon be back fighting for their religions.

The drunk has no stupor, the rich man no sleep.
The soldier no enemy, the dead no one to weep.
The migrant no home, the pusher no trip,
All silenced and stilled by an invisible whip.

Deserted streets, no smoke from the factory chimney,
Working hands are stilled, and the mind, empty.
The aeroplane has been grounded, motor engines stalled.
This world we live in, we think we're owners of it all.

Dolphins now cruise across international shipping lanes,
While the whales bump into oil rigs sans a flame.
The elephants romp on quiet forest roads.
But soon we'll be back on rat race mode.

The plough is idle, harvest rotting in the fields.
Food delivered by app, an investor's tricky deal,
Conquerors and grabbers of another's land,
Now holed up in silence in their opulence bland.

Satellites crowd every orbit, the stars home alone.
The youth stay buried in their own mobile phones.
TV anchors tongue twisted, the politician tongue tied,
All their noise just piles up in the great dark void.

Butterflies and bats backflip in unmanicured gardens.
The lions in the zoo, bewildered, serve their sentence.
To their lands we had developed the birds now return.
While fishing boats bob at anchor through the downturn.

With all our guns and data, we fear the air we breathe.
Giant Pharmas are now just the quacks of the street.
Great countries of power, confused and weak,
This progress of mankind now thankfully bleak.

But through this desolation we find heart and healers.
Hands that tend the sick, or just us, simple helpers.
The rebel to police, and food to the hungry provide.
Through these hearts, we see, hope beyond the void.