Once upon A Planet

 
(for K. Vikram )
 

She bumbled through the Universe

Basked in a midnight sun

Toddling along her pliant poles

Idly, as if in fun
 

Then Sprang a Mutant Species

Put paid to the gentle haze

Split the Resistant Atom

Noxious in All Its Ways
 

Scorched All her Clemencies

Scourged them , one by one

till flashed a mushroom thunderhead –

And Then There Were None
 

Hurled into margent spaces

no memories left behind

to Fire and Ice yet once again

her high commissions resigned
 

Was a Merry Planet once

gay romped the universe

Till a Horde of Half-wit Hominids

razed her to a fiery hearse
 

Ask not again, fond Traveller

Of what this New Year brings –

Cataclysms as might yet abort

Our Galactic Wanderings
 

[© R.Kanth 2022]
 

Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda, A Day in the Life, and Expiations