The Flood Poem by Dr John Celes

The water flows to any place,
Flooding the land en way;
Submerging roads, bridges and fields,
Filling the wells and lakes;
It spares no one and humans too,
Neither the beasts nor trees;
Carrying the garbage and rubbish
And the entire sewage of state;
Whole villages have been cut off;
Many have been marooned;
Shelterless and starving in the cold;
Some clutch on to pieces of wood;
And stay alive for some more time,
Afraid to lose their hold;
There’s no water to even drink;
The people are all stark-naked;
And all they see is sea-water,
No food is in sight for many miles;
Oh, what havoc, the storm has wrought
On a state so poor!
So many fishermen are lost;
And many must have died;
Perched atop trees dangerously,
Birds too have not been spared;
They have lost their nests in trees;
And eggs and young ones as well;
The rain is pouring incessantly;
None can escape its brunt;
The state is cut into ‘islets’,
With corpses, carcasses afloat;
The air is filled by malodor;
The stench unfit to breathe;
Many human lives have lost in flood,
The place is diseases-prone;
Should nature be so unkind
To human beings on earth?
Help seems to come at a snail’s speed;
Thousands were swept alive;
No one knows the numbers lost;
A pall of gloom covers;
Will the flood-waters ever recede?
Will the sun dry up the land?
Lakhs of houses have been washed off;
God help the poor victims!
Copyright by Dr John Celes 12-8-1999