The rains have failed them again this year

And so hunger will stalk them no doubt

Yet another year of misery and death

This land so beset by drought

Forlornly they stare at the once fertile earth

That met their every need

Now parched and cracked like flaking skin

Where nothing grows, not even weed

From the unrelenting and merciless sun

With bony hands they shade eyes once proud

And scour the horizon from end to end

Praying for some life-giving cloud

Ears now deaf to the groaning throes

Of cattle dying untended in the dust

They sit and watch with lifeless eyes

The ploughs that have begun to rust

In the distance they see a cloud

And fleetingly think it’s bearing rain

It’s only the smoke of funeral pyres

Of bodies by hunger and thirst slain

Not many and not very often

Some tankers visit them now and then

Leading to bedlam, riots and chaos

Making fiends of peaceful men

Most often they just pass them by

To the cities that they will now seek

For villagers are those who do without

To inherit this earth you must be meek

They might as well have been adrift at sea

With water all around

With not a drop to quench their thirst

Despite the lapping sound

All round the village dust devils dance

Like so many evil spirits in glee

As people pack their meager bundles

This frustrating destruction to flee

Swarms of locusts have descended now

Like those devils in the dust

To photograph these skeletons and write about

This story that’s a must

Will those elected by these very souls

Do something to stop this happening again

Implement schemes they draw on paper

To prevent this yearly refrain

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