Poetry – On The Run

On the Run

On the run

Through the trees

Down the rivers

To the sea.

On the run

Through the smoke

From the poachers

You and me. 

On the run

Without a clue

To all of this

Insanity.

All on the run

On the run

Run

Run

Run.

Opher 14.4.2016

On the Run

I had this image, from a photograph imprinted in my brain, of a poor lemur in Borneo looking utterly bewildered as it stumbled along a fallen tree that had probably, up until that day, been its home. All around it were bonfires of flame and smoke, massive bulldozers and chains, with men in yellow hardhats carrying chainsaws.

In the foreground was gouged red soil, jagged stumps and ripped trees. In the background was pristine jungle.

The image was frozen in time.

I wondered what happened to the petrified creature. Did it stumble back into the jungle? Did one of the brutalised workmen dispatch it?

It was just one more pathetic victim of the inexorable destruction of the forest. It was of no consequence. In the big scheme of things it was of no significance whatsoever. I wanted to shout at it to run, run run………… while it had a chance!

I was much too late. Its fate had already been decided.

All over the planet, in every corner of the world, the trees are falling, the bonfires burning and the creatures are ripped out of existence.

The trouble is that there is fast becoming nowhere for them to run to.