Tao of Mao or Mao's Tao

 In Mao's mind, a vision grand,

A campaign to increase the land,

To produce steel, coal, and grain,

To surpass the West, to gain,

A status of wealth and power,

A dream that turned into a horror.

The Great Leap Forward, a name so bold,

A plan that promised riches untold,

But in practice, it caused such pain,

A catastrophic failure, an economic drain.

To make steel, they threw in all they could,

From buttons, buckles, to metal scrap and wood,

Into crude furnaces, they poured their sweat,

But what they got was pig iron, a useless set.

They cut down forests, burned every tree,

To fuel the furnaces, to keep them free,

Of all the smoke and smog and haze,

That spread across the land, in a toxic blaze.

The peasants, forced to make steel,

Could not tend their crops, it was unreal,

The harvests rotted in the fields,

While they worked on a pipe dream, it yields.

And then Mao's obsession with sparrows,

To rid the land of this bird that burrows,

Into the fields, to eat the grain,

He ordered them killed, it was insane.

The people beat drums, they made a din,

To scare away the birds, to make them thin,

But what they did not realize then,

The insects came, and they came in.

The fields were overrun by pests,

The crops were gone, there was no rest,

The famine came, it was so vast,

The people died, and they died so fast.

They ate the bark, they ate the leaves,

They dug up the dead, it was a grievous,

Time for China, a time of pain,

A time of loss, of hardship, of strain.

The Great Leap Forward, a plan so flawed,

A dream that turned into a fraud,

A lesson learned, a story to tell,

A warning for all, for those who excel.

In the pursuit of progress and gain,

Do not forget the people, do not cause pain,

For what is the point of riches and fame,