Thursday, September 01, 2022

The Danube

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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