RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: RIVER SERIES
The Danube (River Series)
The Danube runs from eastern Germany
Through Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia
Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova and Ukraine
There it empties into the Black Sea
Where it has watched human history
From the front row balcony
It has seen the wars that humans fight
It has seen the stone, bronze and iron ages
It has traced the rise and fall of the Roman empire
The mongrels and the Ottomans
Atilla the Hun and Alexander the Great
It has watched the crusades of Christians
And the conquests of the moors
The grand Danube river suffered through
The age of industry as massive pollution
Filled its waters with chemical waste
The Danube is running low now
As Europe’s five-hundred-year drought
Wipes away the river’s vibrant flow
Exposing relics of the second world war
Altering flood plains and threatening crops
Protestors in Bucharest plead for revise
As water supplies are rationed
Hydroelectric power is reduced
And river transport is compromised
Those who have depended on the Danube
For hundreds and thousands of years
Are reaching the desperate hours
We cannot go on pretending
Nothing has changed when
Everything has changed
The river Danube is running low
Before long it may run dry
Unless we take drastic action now
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