I have never believed there is a heaven
Nor, until today, that hell really exists
But what I have seen with my own eyes
Has blown my rational mind into bits

I’ve seen an old man gasping for a whiff
Pleading to the gods, sitting on his haunches
I’ve seen masses of lemmings on a cliff
Banging on plates and blowing into conches

For her dying father who has given up hope
I’ve seen a daughter begging for a bed
Overwhelmed, exhausted, yet trying to cope
I’ve seen a doctor with a bowed-down head

I’ve seen families carrying their dead
Searching in vain for sticks of wood
For the final dignity of a funereal rite
Their piles of cash are simply no good

With no hospitals, oxygen, or essential drugs
A country is forced to battle a deadly disease
Cries for help are met with indifferent shrugs
The world looks on at a nation on its knees

Yet even in this hell there are brave souls
Holding forth even as their shirts are on fire
“The West has had it so much worse,
Their death toll is oh so much higher!”

A strict rationalist, I have never paid heed
To fanciful notions like heaven or hell
But what I have witnessed here, indeed
I’d say was Hades (if I lived long enough to tell)