Ladies and Gentlemen Lunch is Served
The present feast is haunted by starving multitudes and chimneys spewing ash.
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From ULR
Issue 7 – Environment
Please Sir, No More
Bushfire's heat. A koala's 'more' for water twists, a silent plea for it to end.
June 15, 2022
An Australian Bush fire rages
A Koala barely escapes the flames
Bewildered, hot and thirsty.
I watch the video from the safety of my home
A compassionate firefighter feeds him water from his water bottle
Then withdraws the bottle believing
the koala’s thirst was quenched.
I imagine the koala saying (reaching out again for the bottle with his paws)
“Please sir, I want some more,” like Oliver Twist,
Meanwhile the trees burned, the sky turned to ash
Homes collapsed, people fled, the earth wept
Oxygen turned to Carbon dioxide.
We closed our windows and our minds
To keep out the smoke.
I’m certain I heard the koala say
“Please sir, no more.” He didn’t mean water.
📖
PART OF A COLLECTIONPlease Sir, No More and 2 other poems
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Kavita Ezekiel Mendonca
Kavita Ezekiel Mendonca has been a teacher of English, French and Spanish in educational institutions in India and internationally. Her poems have been published in various journals and anthologies, including the Yearbook of Indian Poetry in English, The Journal of Indian Poetry in English by Sahitya Akademi, and others. Her debut collection ‘Family Sunday and other Poems’ was published in 1989. Her. A collection ‘Family Sunday and other Poems’ was published in 1989 and a chapbook ‘Light of the Sabbath’ in September 2021.