Garden Surprise

On bench I sit, with sun so warm,
A thrush sings sweetly high above;
But thunder I hear – a threat’ning storm?
But still there calls a collared dove.

The evening sun, now so low,
Beyond the distant Wolds I see;
With martins darting to and fro,
Idyllic and kind is life to me.

Rooks above begin to throng:
My dreamy eyes sleepily close;
So drowsy now; for sleep I long,
No longer alert, I begin to doze,

But then a cry; a shriek so fierce –
Above the copse where rooks now wheel;
My ears and heart their shrieks do pierce,
Do they the truth of life reveal?

My heart is gripped with icy chill;
The air is laden with death and decay;
A sudden silence; the air is still,
As dismal thoughts upon me weigh.

Before me now, a sight so grim,
A mother with child so close to death;
In war-torn Yemen no future for him,
As cholera grips and takes his breath.

I see a youth, haggard and thin,
His looks implore and strike my heart;
On bed he sits with shrivelled skin,
A sense of shame my thoughts impart.

Now I see a tiny waif,
She’s bent so low in sun so hot;
So weak and limp no longer safe,
Will her life come to nought?

Awake I am, and lightning flashes,
The thrush no longer sings on high;
The rooks shriek louder and thunder crashes,
“Life’s idyllic and kind!” - I scream and cry….

In Yemen, child rights violations have increased dramatically and children are facing significant psychological stress. Some three million children under five years of age and pregnant women require services to treat severe malnutrition. An estimated 1.8 million children are out of school due to fighting and insecurity. The statistics show that 1 in 20 children dies before the age of five (Madhok, 2016).

As a result of the extreme poverty and the effects of the war, Cholera is now killing large numbers of children and adults.  Lack of sanitation and lack of clean and safe drinking water are major factors affecting a country in extreme crisis. This is the world’s largest cholera epidemic, with more than 530,000 suspected cases and 2,000 related deaths. Millions more people are starving. Yet the lack of press attention on Yemen’s conflict has led it to be described as the “forgotten war”. – New Statesman 22 August 2017

Twenty thousand people are now reported to have died.