“I wrote this poem after I read about people in Pakistan digging mass graves in advance of the forecast heatwave, so as to not be caught unprepared, as they were last year.”
— Kamala Emanuel
WHEN THE CLIMATE COMES FOR YOU
by Kamala Emanuel
Past sick sadistic tyrants made each victim dig their grave,
Mowed them down without mercy, in wave after wave.
But now heat is the trigger set for the many by the few
Will you be ready when the climate comes for you?
In Karachi they’ll be ready when the tide of death rolls in
When the poor and frail fall prey to the oil barons’ sin.
This time the corpses won’t lie rotting, morgues overfull anew –
Will you be ready when the climate comes for you?
Mass graves are dug as the local people wonder
Who will die and who, survive, the planetary plunder.
Will the very ones who dig the graves be swallowed by them too?
Will you be ready when the climate comes for you?
From the heatwave of South Asia to the drought of California,
First the scientists spoke up – now Mother Nature’s out to warn ya.
Burning coal and oil and gas, releasing all that CO2,
Will you be ready when the climate comes for you?
A new epoch is upon us; climate chaos, the new normal.
As we strive to cope, we’d better make people’s power structures formal.
Bury this greed-driven system, before it buries you.
Will you be ready when the climate comes for you?
Oil giants, warmongers, banksters, you who profit from disasters,
We’re not content to count the dead, and have you stay as masters.
Grave-diggers for each other, or for the filthy illthy few?
Will you be ready when the people come for you?
Kamala Emanuel is a member of the Socialist Alliance in Perth, Western Australia