The Claws Of Greed Poem by Auaduma Adookorn

The sea is pale and fatigued on crude spill,
the baldhead mangroves stand naked,
and gaze at the exhausted white sea

Zephyr wade through without a hug,
and birds don't perch to nest and sing
in a haven of trees where wind whistled -

Birds sang and dance, and the mangroves
enchanted leaves invites nesting birds -

pririwinkle fed on the bark of mangrove,
and oyster nested on mangroves root -
calm and lobster fed on mud and shore sand

Their calcium nursed pregnant women
who gave birth without a midwife -
then, my eyes were on my knees

Today, my dugout crawl on the toxic river
drunk with the blessed spill of black gold,
and my hungry creel sing dirge of dying sea.

Each breath, the vemom that snub our frail life -
now, stripped nude by the claws of greed,
we live at the lenience of black soot -
with no pillar to support our roof.

You drain our pure life to its nerve fibre
with soulless syringe of lethal rewards,
and drink our blood with wiry smiles

that anchors our groping hope,
at the balcony of tooth for tat
soul for soul
blood for blood
life for life -
nemesis conceive in the womb of time,
and the reward is divine!