The lonely sparrow fidgeted in the hedge,
while down below an adder slowly stirred,
above the magpie chattered on its ledge,
soaring the buzzard stared at the bird.
—
The heated fiery sun burned their backs,
the haze mimicked the mirage of water,
a house, closed against the hostile, faces
a hope’s that’s fast diminishing. A daughter
—
is dying for lack of a simple medication,
like the sparrow she is caught in a trap
set fifty years before by this very nation,
as heat rises, harvest dies, the tree sap
—-
fails to rise. Nearby a group hungering,
see a house, so like the buzzard hover,
break in and take the last of everything,
to feed their own, nothing’s left over.
—-
The buzzard waits as the magpie eats,
then takes her final fill and silence falls,
the snake waits coiled for a dying treat,
the houses shuttered in silent walls.
