Dispossessed Motherland - by Vivekanand Jha

Dispossessed Motherland

I am from the land
Reduced to handful sand
Where is only mud
Left by devastating flood.

Here is no crop to reap
But only blood to creep
On our fate to weep
And feet not rise to leap.

Here is no food to eat
No room to express the wit
No place to peacefully sit
Good enough to cause the fit
As we are by poverty hit.

Here is no fuel to be lit
No milk in the mother’s teat
We have only dust to beat
Bleak and barren land and wit.

Here is no work to do
So we have earning few
And we have courage to muster
To gather the bread and butter.

Here is no life utility
Here is only killing by brutality
Which exposes administrative futility?
By their nature of duality.

Here is no feather in the cap
Only the news of kidnap
In the mean time you nap
Child is dispossessed from mother’s lap.

Here is no morality to be taught
If you do death to be bought
Don’t give the suggestion unsought
Which only misery to be brought.

Here is only the battle to be fought
One-year flood is another year drought
We are caught in the current of time
There is no difference
Between the age of old and prime

Here is no moment of auspicious, only ill omen
People are living in the devil’s domain
To earn livelihood, what can do the men?
Go miles and years away to deadly den
Lovelorn of their children and women.

Here is no magic wand
Men beat their own drum and band
Here are only foes, hardly any friend
Here is none for mistakes to amend
Here is no right for dignity to defend
This is a dispossessed motherland
This is nothing but a Waste Land.