Wildlife is preserved in forest reserves,
Marine creatures in ocean reserves,
And now here’s the Hanley Dark Sky Reserve
A background radiation -free zone
A circle twenty two miles, the base of a cone
So that, even from far away stars, the distant light
Is not masked and blocked and lost to sight.
Ever dry and unclouded is the sky, which is why,
Astronomers may gaze at the night sky that is a-blaze
With a million stars and galaxies
At Ladakh’s Chandra observatory.
GB
Twenty nine countries have now collaborated
In the Artemis project to chart out ways
To create a Gateway and a Lunar Base.
Water and mineral resources abound
At the South Pole of the moon, (though underground).
In a decade or two, will it come to pass That the moon has become too crowded and crass
And adventurous souls will analyse and parse
Ways and means to settle on Mars?
GB
My granddad had a horse quite high-bred
But impossible to train, is what they said
For whenever he was harnessed to a cart
He’d make a quick u-turn and start
Off in the opposite direction.
But grandad solved the problem easily
By pointing his muzzle 180 degrees
Away from where he needed to go, and so
They got on very well. The problem with me
Is that I’m unable to deal with any idiosyncrasy
that I meet
At home or on the street!
GB
In my village old people still say
Take the north-eastern pathway.
They’re so attuned to the sun and stars…
I’ve settled in the city, come so far
From my roots, I need a Google map to see
Where I am, and where I should be.
Lost in a maze of streets and thought
It’s time I oriented myself…maybe I ought To be aware of my surroundings and my goal,
Pay more attention to the way forward for my soul.. .
GB
I am a time traveller, I can go ‘when’ I please
I roam all space, visiting stars and galaxies
Shape-shifter, I, clad in gold and red leather
Or black and white, or invisible as a digital avatar.
I provoke, I challenge, I gladden, I sadden,
I’m a melange, a collection
Of words, sometimes images, that you call –a book!
GB
Footprints in snow, footprints in the sand,
Show that, before you, someone walked this land
The snow-melt, the leaping tide erase all trace,
Leave the board clean for the next generation..
But can they cope with the scope
Of our present concrete monstosities and pollution?
GB
Cut down a tree and the stump very soon
Puts out new twigs and leafy plumes.
Most crabs can make up for any loss
By regrowing broken shells and claws.
Flatworms even when cut into four
Regrow, becoming whole worms, once more.
Tadpoles and lizards can regrow lost tails
I wish, for once, humanity fails
To regrow hatred and bitterness and then
Go on to war and again and again….
GB
gitabharath 