It Always Rises Back, After The Fall

I am telling you
I’ve seen it all
with my own eyes.
Again and again
the full moon
reduces and shrinks,
fades and vanishes
to become a new moon
dark and lustre-less.

But miraculous for it
to grow back its antlers
bit by bit, inch by inch.
Regain its full bloom
shine proud, like never before

Does it even care
it’s soon to have
another fading session,
another dark round of
obscurity and oblivion?
Because it learnt early on
how to return, for a new harvest
how to shine again…after the fall.

© 2016-17 Alka Girdhar

…. …. ….

Today, it’s the full moon day, called Thunder Moon or Full Buck moon.

“...a buck’s antlers are in full growth mode. Known as the Thunder Moon because thunderstorms are so frequent during this month…” (I suppose, in the US, and not elsewhere)

This poem, being my comeback post, is not my best attempt. But I hope, like full moon, I too will be able to come back from time to time 🙂

On The Verge Of Breakdown…

Nature: Ambience at every step

 

Nature’s Cry

Too benign in her ambient harmony she is
but like most other women, she is
overworked and underpaid

She takes it all with a smile
and continues to serve and oblige
bestow food, water, shelter, respite

She bears it quietly, but at times
retaliates, blows tornadoes
fumes volcanoes, warms up too much
goes bitterly cold; she goes on strike

But merciful mother nature that she is
she quickly forgives her spoilt children
hoping her wayward brats will learn
one day soon; hope not after it’s too late

© 2017 Alka.

♣~♣~♣~ ♣~♣~♣~♣

Nature, like most women, is so calm and giving…provides free fresh air, food, water, and of course a feast of breathtaking beauty to everyone. But in return she is being taxed. Too exposed, vulnerable and defenseless in the hands of humans who are using it.

Industrial pollution has changed air composition and that of rivers.
Fossil fuel consumption, greenhouse gases are a reality.
Trees are being cut down via deforestation.
Genetic engineering and genetically modified crops are toxic for the wild life.
Ozone layer is getting depleted due to industrial gases. Global warming is looming large.
Resources are not just getting polluted but also depleted, while overpopulation means we are going to need more and more.

There are many more causes of natural and environmental breakdown…but what can we do? Can we change it?
Look around. We all can do our tiny bit, within our own community.

After all, looking after nature as also the women in your life, will  prove beneficial for the family…our world family of living beings as well as our own family and home.

~ alka ~

Stranded No More…

Stranded No More…

When seclusion callously corrodes
Every inch of your fine being
When it’s all dark and dreary
And your heart is tired and weary
Your eyes too solemn and teary.

Then lose no heart, O comrade!
The gloom will soon evaporate
The beaming rays will finally break
Through the engulfing black clouds
Compelling them to dissipate

Hang in there some more time!
For soon time will turn around
Get ready to smile and welcome
The crystal clear blue skies and
Golden happiness all around

© 2016 Alka Girdhar

~~~ ~~~

In response to #writephoto Photo Prompt ‘Isolation’ by Sue Vincent..

These Grounded Earthlings…

They feel rooted
Only if they immerse
In the soil of nurturing earth
Or sprout from its womb
As a young sapling

**

They love pecking
The bare warm earth
Replete with little bounties
Of their daily food
That they love eating

**

They love earthing
To lush green earth
The oh-so-soft cushioned carpet
That caresses and soothes
Their bare skin

**

Farmer setting fire to Amazon

Amazon forests burning

They love setting fire
To their Mother Earth’s
Sprawling fertile forests
And possess its vast lands
They then call their own

(Now, deforestation is not just due to human malpractices or ill intentions of using forest land for businesses like cattle-ranching; as fires are also due to drought and overall climate change. But then again humans are the only species who ought to know how to save earth’s assets rather than cut them down or burn them for selfish reasons. Our verdant earth’s forests are home to so many species.)

~~~~ ~~~~~

All pictures self-clicked except for the last two (for obvious reasons). Source

For The Daily Post’s Weekly Photo Challenge Earth

Orbs of Light – Sun & Moon

Borrowed Glory

Shining in my glory
You charm the lovesick couples?
Thus spoke sun to moon

*

Hopegivers

As big star goes down
Little bro moon shows its face
Keeping our hopes alive

(sunset from my backyard and moon coming up from the front)

© 2016 Alka Girdhar

~~~ ~~~

These are my two haiku written for Ronovan Writes Haiku Challenge 93
The two words provided were: Sun & Moon

Today I attempted haiku poems after a long time. I’m not very good at it, I thought.
But then what am I good at? I wondered. I wrote. I let it be…

WPC: Half-Light

 

Half Light

 

When darkness hasn’t yet engulfed
Things that bright light had once touched
It’s a reign of hazy twilight…

This shadowy light that
Like some half-baked truth
Reveals enough, hides enough…

For raw truth often hurts
And so do blatant lies
Neither black nor white, have grey

Hugging these truthful-lies…
Feeling the fleeting vibes
Of dreamy glow, that isn’t here to stay

It will ebb away, at the blink of an eye
But what a feast for our thirsty eyes
This half-lit half-light!

© Alka Girdhar

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge:
Half-Light
Share a photo inspired by a poem, verse, song lyric or story.

The header of my blog itself represents half-light.

In Transit…

 

Early Ephemeral Signs

The weather man declares
Here’s your last day of summer
Be prepared, relish the change

I wonder at their confident claims
And look for subtle signs of change
Nature’s fleeting moods and frames

Yes! Yellowing greens, falling leaves
True! Shorter days, stillness in the air
Not too hot, and not yet cold here

Summer’s silently slipping away
Auburn autumn’s not too far away
Winter will soon be on its way

~~~

Transitory Thoughts

Toddling childhood
Romps away
Youth a guest
Never overstays
Fleeting desires
Melting moments
Nothing remains but
Cobweb of memories of
Tangled mesh of wishes
That refuse to untangle
One day, the last breath
Resolves everything
Good or bad, all
Comes to naught, like
Dispersing dewdrops

© 2016 Alka Girdhar

~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~

These are my two poems written in response to The Daily Post’s today’s writing prompt: Fleeting

 

It has Begun, More to Come

The Daily Post’s writing prompt Six of One, Half a Dozen of the Other has asked us to write a six-word story about what we think the future holds for us, and then expand on it.

Here’s my six word story:

Aging has Begun, More to Come

Now please don’t tell me to elaborate on this little story too much.  Such cruel reminders touch a raw nerve and it can get painful.  Painful to think about which nuts and bolts have started to go lose; which part of brain is beginning to fuse. And then I’ll start wondering when did this aging began?

Painting: Aging Hourglass

Do we begin to age soon after we are born, or is that process called growing in age?  Which means till our mid-twenties we continue to grow and bloom. In fact at that age we don’t even think we are ever going to grow old. But it’s an inevitable decline thereon.  So, aging is not when our back clearly shows the stoop or our head is full of grey. Aging is the whole process of going downhill, that begins with the cellular changes soon after youth; with the onset of grey hair or with growing aches and pains in our bones.

Basically, after achieving peak of adulthood, soon begins a slow degeneration of body assets given to us by nature.  Oxidation, free-radicals or whatever chemical reasons bring it on, it just has to happen. It’s a different issue that most of us are created imperfect by nature. Hence other than aging, it is genetics and our individual environment that’s the reason of ill-health and imperfection but aging certainly further deteriorates this imperfection. Aging may also onset some new disease in those body parts that we always assumed to be perfect, till at some stage we may lose these organs altogether.

Teeth show aging.  Even some children do not have perfect teeth, and even at the prime of youth many people have teeth full of holes that have been medically filled.  But it’s a different issue.  One day, teeth will fall off and never come back. Now that’s what is frightening.  Right now, my teeth are more or less the same as they’ve been for years. They did go through some early repair work, a root canal and couple of fillings.  But it’s different from what’s to come in the future.

Worsening eye-sight is generally an early sign of aging.  But then again, these days even children wear specs and contacts, and laser surgeries are common.  Between the age of 25 and 30, I had already developed Myopia or nearsightedness. Glasses though I had, I hardly ever wore them. Based on this neglect, my eyes-sight should have gone worse in all these years. Surprisingly it hasn’t but for how long will it be like that?  It’s been different for farsightedness. Till two years ago I didn’t need reading glasses. Now I most certainly do. My mother says, aging is not just about changed vision but also about problems like cataract and glaucoma so we should take care. And how do we do that?

These days hair problems too are not merely age-related as they begin in youth itself, thanks to harsh colorants. But aging adds to it. As in my case, my hair that were once my asset, are not very glossy anymore. Hair fall is another problem. Greying that began a decade ago is bound to increase in future. Hair-colour makes them dull and not using a colour will make aging visible. I do not like to colour them all the time so sometimes I let them be.

There will be skin changes in future. As such my skin was never my asset, for I didn’t have peaches and cream complexion that some other family members had. Moreover it’s always been neglected. Funnily, whatever little signs of wri*k*ing (that began whenever it did), are somehow not getting any worse. But who knows the future?

Other than these vain cosmetic criteria, there is inner health that counts more.  Again, whatever health problems I have right now, have always been there. I learnt to cope with them and I haven’t developed anything new lately.

Overall I feel I’m kind of stuck in time but for how long will this state continue?  If aging began years ago, it was slow, it paused off and on…but it will eventually reappear and take charge brutishly, what with all the defense mechanisms gone weak. That’s why the whole world fears aging.

.

Was that a dreadful rant?  Sure it was. Actually it was just my little story gone wrong.  I don’ t worry that much about appearance and I am happy with natural aging. Moreover I try not to hang around much with people who bother too much about these things.

And yet it is life itself that we truly wish to seek; a happy and healthy life at that. Hence I’ll change my six-word story:

Life has begun, More to come

Or

Happiness has begun, More to come

~~~~~~~

A Fateful Union – Jupiter & Venus

We converge tonight
Oh! What a sight
For enchanted onlookers

We come close
As close as we can be.
But destined to drift apart

While we are here
Let’s make the most
Of union that’s meant to be

~~~

The two planets that are actually millions of kilometers apart, appear very close tonight. After three days like this, they will again drift apart.

Scientists call this phenomenon a conjunction. Circumstances where two celestial bodies appear to be very close together in the sky, but actually they’re separated by millions or hundreds of millions of miles or even light years.

Prancing Nature…Helpless Humans

Early this week, in Shine after Rain I wrote about the three-day super storm that lashed Sydney recently.

Sydney-siders had not even recovered from the previous storm that two days down the track yesterday again a freakish unusual storm battered Sydney, this time with hailstorm.
I captured some of the heavy rain and hail in motion as you can see the white vertical haze.

While this hailstorm was causing chaos in Sydney, minutes after that came along a huge earthquake causing devastation in Nepal.

These are vagaries and forces of mother nature. One moment we sit calm and quiet, the next moment we are badly shaken. Nature makes us run around in awe and fear.

In olden days, it was not possible to capture images of shaking earth during earthquakes or overflowing waters causing tsunami. But nowadays the same cameras that take our beautiful selfies, the same security cameras that we deploy to save us from impending dangers, now they show us our very own devastation in the hands of nature…as it occurs minute by minute.

My poem on the above thought:

these time machines
capture live selfies
now film
the dance of death
seize
poignant moments
devastation alive
acquaint us
with our grim reality
for we are but
puppets and pawns
in the hands
of time and death

The above video (courtesy: you tube) shows yesterday’s earthquake in Nepal shaking the earth. My Haiku poem to sum up nature’s dance:

Dame nature scares us
with its moody moves and shakes
Another victory on humans

Nature’s victory on humans. Yes. But as usual we rise above it all by sharing our resources with those who have been hard hit. The undaunted human spirit survives.

~~~

One Word Photo Challenge: Hail and Storm

Header: self-clicked – hail on the grass.