Ode to Azraq Wetlands

Ode to Azraq Wetlands by J

It was a hot murky morning the day we arrived in Azraq
and it was only April ....
'What? No winter? ' we cried ;
as the sight that greeted the eye was one
of parched and dusty lands, and dying palm trees one after the other;
Simple havoc on nature's trail where once our wetlands used to prevail;
It left a tear and saddened heart with fear
for man and nature.

But this was man's undoing;

A dying legacy that leaves a scar of more Roman bricks and mortar

in the oasis of our blessed neighbourhood;
of 'Azraq', the blue,
no more ....

For without the springs of winter,

there's no water for buffalo,
shank, warbler, nor egret;
nor ostrich nor oryx too.

And what of man and his ilk, I hear you ponder
As we wonder at the power of men to milk and plunder.
And so the bounty below our blessed soil
that fostered an ecology for millennia,
is pumped and diverted and squandered
in the name of questionable development;
a change without thought;
a culture sacrificed on the altar of our
greed and discontent ....

For once this oasis and refuge is gone,
what then my beloved Jordan?