Billions of years ago,
God bestowed a piece of his paradise sublime;
Creating life and sermonising the art of living
Through scriptures and virtuous preaching
Earth’s blissful beauty then
Was halfway to heaven;
With love, compassion and wisdom endowed,
To nature and its creator mankind bowed.
Until civilisations declined and man’s greed took a seed
With growing pleasure in vices, diminishing was the good deed
In mankind’s garden, sprouting was this vice-like weed
Riches and pleasure made him forget
The course of endless desires will beset
Leading the human race to self-destruction
Defying every law of nature, of humanity, of living;
Scraping away all the old,
The new stood at the threshold.
Our paths well guided by the cemented roadway
Yet decimating forest lands we went astray;
Albeit building towers high, houses concrete and strong
We couldn’t build bonds that last long.
With pollution, deforestation, and urbanisation,
Our environment was suffocating!
Love and compassion for all beings was dearth;
Bleeding with resilience was the tormented Earth.
To restore herself and pacify the restless man,
Mother Earth resorted to a plan.
The modern routine, it was set to transform
With a micro-organism seizing the highest life form,
Shackling man’s arms stretching greedily,
Restraining his feet running untiringly,
And rendering peace and purpose to his mind wandering restlessly.
Of worldly affairs, there was a cessation,
Beginning the era of mundane reformation;
Making us back pedal to the old paradigm,
So that mankind and nature would be in chime.
The traditional lifestyle is no more irrational and arbitrary
’cause the ‘new normal’ is the old customary.
Nature has ceased mankind
Now, it’s time we rewind!
Prachi Gupta is 17-year-old student at Ramnarain Ruia College, Mumbai.
Featured image credit: cromaconceptovisual/Pixabay