Unsung Disaster~
Creeping imperceptibly
the heat wave harvests the old;
lone bachelors, spinsters
and abandoned parents.
The silence is awesome
yet the morgues overflow,
unclaimed bodies lie in cool corridors
and refrigerated hangars.
Undertakers are overwhelmed
and gravediggers break their backs.
Shouts begin here and there,
crescendoing into a national uproar.
Statisticians calculate the increase
in the death rate in that black August.
The figures are in the tens of thousands.
Governments are blamed, ministers resign,
Yet the old would have died anyway,
a few years more or a few less
wouldn’t really matter.
September will be cooler
and the death rate would regress
to the normal levels.
©Boghos L. Artinian MD
Bio:
Boghos L. Artinian is a physician in private practice in Beirut since 1975. He is a graduate of the American University of Beirut MD 1968 and MRCP(UK) 1973. Since 1986, when he was 44 years old, he has written many poems in medical and literary journals. The internet has made a tremendous contribution to his success in getting published.
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