My Land, My Mother Poem by David Esdaile

My land, my mother
Raped and scarred, naked and bleeding
Her secret places ravished
Her precious things are stolen,
Her lifeblood seeps away.

Her hills are scarred,
Her forests plundered,
Her rivers dead and dying,
Poisoned,
To fatten others,
To make them rich.

Her riches are stolen
To fatten those who have no love for her,
Raped and thrown away,
Humiliated,
Her beauty stripped
And gone forever.

Does no-one care enough
To clothe her naked body,
To stem her rivers of blood,
Restore her former beauty,
Her virginity?

New Caledonia,
My land, my lover.

To fatten others,