The fight for our rivers, mountains and forests

◊ Photography by Ton-E Watson ◊ Poetry by Prerna Bakshi ◊

 The rivers, the mountains, the forests

are to which we belong

we ever belonged

until they came along

with high advanced machinery

trucks laden with artillery

state sponsored police thievery

to lay claim

on all of this

through breaking, distorting laws

and other tricks

under the guise of ‘development’

but we are irreverent

so they say

threatening us to go away

no way, we say

for we simply won’t walk away

fight – we will

and continue to struggle

our resistance will go on

which they’d fail to muzzle

–they’d fail to muzzle

See more photography from Ton-E at www.pikfocus.com

Prerna Bakshi  is a scholar, writer and translator of Indian origin, currently based in Macao. Her work has previously been published in over two dozen journals and magazines, most recently in Whirlwind Magazine, Silver Birch Press, Wilderness House Literary Review, Kabul Press, Misfit Magazine and Postcolonial Text. Her full-length poetry collection, Burnt Rotis, With Love, is forthcoming from Les Éditions du Zaporogue. She tweets at @bprerna