I spent my childhood days,
In the forest beyond my backyard,
Every leaf of every tree,
Is attached with a fond memory.
The year I left,
When the leaves turned brown,
The murderers came in hordes,
With their weapons of choice.
The forest echoed,
With the thudding of lifeless trees,
Cracking tiny eggs in the nests,
Perched on their majestic boughs.
Squirrels, racoons, and all the mice,
Were left without a place to call their own,
Colonies torn apart,
By a single hand.
Who could think,
Even for a moment,
That trees didn’t shed tears,
As their bodies hit the ground.
Killing with them,
The hopes of parent birds,
The world within a single life,
Thousands of hopes riding on one being.
The men left then,
Without a crease on their conscience,
Cold and heartless,
Wiping the blood off their hands.
And when I came back,
And ran to my special place,
There was no trace,
Of my childhood years.
Off with the trees,
Gone with the wind,
Killed by my country,
In the name of ‘development’.
Pratichi Satpathy
Class VIII
