It all started out,

Well, completely fine.

With wolves prancing ‘bout,

And the world still benign.

Then we came into being,

“Who are they?” they asked.

Said God, “They’re human beings,

And I’ve set them a task.

They mustn’t rip, nor destroy,”

And the animals said, “Yay!”

“Don’t treat the world like it’s a toy,”

And we promised, “No way!”

But we with our intelligence,

Got carried far away.

“The human race shall commence!”

Sadly, we’re there to stay.

With odd machines

That whizz and whirr,

Cruel machines,

They surely were!

Coughing up filthy smoke,

And polluting far and wide.

“Stop it, silly dopes!”

Said the animals, wide-eyed.

But we did not stop,

Oh surely, no, no, no.

We sliced off all the tree tops,

And got rid of all the dodos.

And we didn’t stop on land,

Surely we did not,

Dirtying away, hand in hand,

Ignoring the fish’s plead to stop.

We threw poisons into seas,

And rubbish onto roads.

The poor animals were forced to eat,

The rubbish they so loathed.

Once I read that fog,

When mixed with the city smoke,

Causes very harmful smog

And thus the vow broke.

So they got poisoned,

As did we.

Both were burdened

By a breathing malady.

See what we did?

By breaking a vow,

The wrong way we slid,

See what happened now?

Tigers killed for bone,

Some others killed for musk.

For elephants I moan,

Killed for ivory tusk.

The damage that we did,

Affects you and me too.

Take action don’t be timid,

Or damage we’ll always do.

About The Poet

Shuaa is a bright, fun-loving and enthusiastic young learner. In her spare time, she reads and writes stories, loves to cycle and practises martial arts. She is a black belt in Karate.

She has bagged 8th position internationally for the MARRS Spell Bee finals held in India.