No choice water

No Choice Water

By Dr Badal Pal

Far away in the desert lands
or even closer to hand
many an arid desolation
lurk amongst us constant

No water or water is filthy
no water or it is silty
no choice water for ever
drink or die whatever

This is the lot of thousands
thousands or perhaps even millions.
Who  stops for a moment in contemplation ,
whose thoughts linger in commiseration ?
Only a few perhaps act in salvation.

Thousands of children die for lack of water
or because they have no choice but surrender
and have to drink germs tainted whatever
sun burnt desiccated soils everywhere.

In the brief time it took me to compose this
perhaps hundreds have died without my knowing.
How doomed are they and their desperate parents
with the bleak certainty of their demise so apparent?

The great poet wrote ‘water, water everywhere, nor a drop to drink’.
In these desperate terrains
water is no where ,
never mind a  decent drop even.

Water no choice , either nothing or reeking
or  dirty far away in distant lands
or perhaps closer to hand
curse of thousands and thousands.