O! My Dear Thar Poem by Muhammad Shanazar

O! My dear Thar
None could change your fate,
Your land is made to burn forever,
Your residents will have to suffer from starvation,
Those who could run last year,
Cannot even walk,
And those who could walk a year before,
It is hard for them to creep.
They have fearful eyes,
And bones wrapped in thin paper of skin,
Death dances all around,
The animals lie boated,
Those who are the rescuers,
They prefer to the photo sessions,
Instead to help them out,
The young and old have been starved,
Just owing to the recklessness of the rulers,
Wheat lay there in the bins rotting,
And the residents tossing,
On the burning sand.

O! Dear Thar,
Go on suffering,
Your dwellers, birds and animals,
Will go on drinking water
From the same ponds and puddles,
You do not deserve yet the purified water.

To save your beauties,
Is not in priorities of the rulers,
They have yet to save the culture
Of five thousand years old, and construct
Roads over roads just to promote sale
Of cement and iron bars, flourish foundries,
And bargain with the foreign firms
To settle down the ratio of profit,
That the Metro Buses will crop.

O! Dear Thar,
Go on weeping on your fate,
And don’t look around or behind,
You will have to walk on thistles
Instead of the petals of roses,
Though I shed tears for you
Yet I cannot help you out,
For my own feet are chained
And tangled in the thread of other issues,
So weep, weep and cry alone,
Shedding tears on each scattered bone.

Muhammad Shanazar

Note: Thar is the biggest desert in Pakistan, now in the surge of famine.