When the Mighty River Rajang Dries Up

Clearly these photos (permission granted by friend to use them) - show the drying up of the  river...it is not caused by drought...it is not because a monster has swallowed up all the water...

River bed is now exposed by the impounding of the Bakun Dam. We have been told that this was not an expected outcome. Strange? Stranger?Strangerer?

Old logs which had been at the bottom of the river now are drying in the sun like crocodiles....

Typical upriver or ULU staircase used by villagers to board their river expresses(powerful boats which look like a huge capsule and are skippered by drivers wearing sometimes only their blue boxers i.e. -translate - underpants).....May be never to be used again.

A typical Sarawak fishing net or Jala....hanging forlornly...verandah is painted blue. I was once explained  to that the blue paint gives houses an eerie look at night.

Timber trucks continue to take out logs to Bintulu from the Bakun area.

The drying up of the Rajang below Belaga can make a person's emotions go on an overdrive.

Poetry is an overflow of emotions according to W. Wordsworth. I like Walt Whitman who wrote some poems on political issues e.g. O Captain! My Captain! (about Abraham Lincoln) using free verse.

And here is my poem for today......
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Writing Unmetered Poetry -

Words come tumbling out as the river dries up.

Walt Whitman penned his poems in minutes.
No rhyme. No meter. No rules.
Yet  his poems  are great American poems.
Reading aloud his poems one often feels wounded to the core.
Every sinew vibrates by his chosen words.
His soul laid bare.
His heart beats  drumming in one's soul.

When a river dies
A man
COULD stand by and watch.
Stumped. Breath held.
His love and his life withheld.
Yet who cares as much as this one soul?
My river is my poetry of life.

I have no rhyme. No meter. No rules.
Left.
My soul has died.