Landai

source

The ice is melting under my paws.

You have made my homeland a place of hunger and death.

                                  ***

The wildfires are burning the forests.

As we flee, we hear the cries of burning koalas.

                                  ***

Can we sit in prayerful silence

contemplating the destruction of our living world?

                                  ***

How many times can a heart break open?

In my dreams, wild wolves are seeking a safe place to hide.

                                  ***

Mama Bear and three cubs flee the policeman

but they cannot run fast enough to outrun his gun.

                                  ***

From the southern border, can you hear

the distressed cries of children calling  for their mothers?

                                  ***

Some depressing landai for Sanaa's prompt at Real Toads: the landay. 9 syllables in the first line, 13 in the second, this is a form usually sung by Afghan woman. They can include topics of grief, death, women's oppression - and sometimes are ribald, provoking women's laughter. I love how women find ways to release, if only temporarily,  the yoke of oppression through poetry, song and laughter. I chose North American topics, because oppression, of people and species and natural systems, is everywhere.