I am tired of the burden endured for lifetimes,

exhausted from carrying their stupid karmas

 

Despondent, I trudge up to the Heavens to Brahma,

plead my cause and tell Him how truly ravaged I am

 

My children, green and lush, torn from my bowels,

pandering to human greed and imagined necessities

 

My waters have stopped nourishing and flowing,

once sinuous and lithe, they lie now eerie and still

 

My back is heaped with loads of brick and tin,

with mortar and cement pushed into my entrails

 

Deliberately, slowly and steadily killing me,

turning my unsullied beauty into an ugliness

 

Using and abusing me for money and trade,

power and economics, tourism and people

 

Brahma Ji pats me and smiles His ethereal smile

as always, through millennia and countless years

 

He meditates, convenes, deputizes and

commands resources to do His bidding

 

The sun disappears in fright, and clouds of vapour

join to march in clouds of gargantuan dimensions

 

Speeding in warlike proportions to protect and defend

this onslaught upon me, my future and my existence

 

They burst forth with a tremendous roar,

a fury, unleashing wrath and impatience

 

Demolishing that which has overburdened me,

purging all that has been built and assembled

 

Relieved of the load, I finally breathe and gasp,

hoping they understand our destinies are linked

 

That in destroying me - lies their destruction,

in their rapacious greed - lies their eventual peril

 

They will come and remove the debris and soon

re-start to begin in earnest the nonsense again

 

Till then, let me dream and take a break . . .

 

Let me dream of Shiva and His shrine

which is a confirmation of the Eternal

 

With His loyal devotee Nandi – a proclamation

to Dharma and to all that is good and right

 

And may the Devatas continue to bless and guide

so that humanity and I live in peace and quietude