Sharda Gupta Poet Free verse

The Earth I Loved Is Dying in My Arms

I watched my Mother Earth
naked under acid rain,
her trees like ribs poking through
a thinning green dress.

Once, she was thick with mango scent,
her belly warm with rice,
her rivers laughed like gurgling babies
now she chokes on plastic bottles
and oil spills that shimmer
like toxic jewelry.

They say the sea is rising,
but no one tells you how it feels
to watch a coastline
forget the names
of the children who played there.

My childhood was monsoon wet
thunderstorms licked our skin,
frogs sang in the dusk like priests
now rain arrives like a stranger,
either too late
or all at once,
like a slap.

I am told
to recycle,
to carry a cloth bag,
to plant a tree once a year
like lighting a lamp for the dead.
But the billionaires fly
above the storms,
sipping cold coffee
and dreaming of Mars.

And I
a woman with cracked feet
and a bleeding voice
write poems
no one reads,
weep for birds that no longer return,
and mourn glaciers
as if they were lovers
who never said goodbye.

The sun burns angrier now.
The moon stays away.
And I, too,
am learning how to die slowly,
without asking for too much air.

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