(New Year 2010)

The Earth just wrote a New Year verse,

to declare that things are getting worse.

“My air’s become a noxious brew.

I feel as if I’ve caught swine ’flu’.

Most years, my orbit round the Sun -

with a daily spin, has been great fun.

“But now, rotation makes me dizzy:

and heat makes cyclones’ gales more busy.

To cool I melt my polar ice,

but my girth is squeezed as in a vice.

“So Global warming makes me shake:

in Padang this year that caused a ’quake.

The Sun beats down with bigger flares:

he fiercely frowns with feverish glares.

“He sits alone in space, and broods:

and bothers me with cyclic moods.

You human mites don’t help at all:

you’re deaf; just like a thick-brick wall.

“Complaint is hard: I’d hate to ‘ban’:

I’ll long provide as best I can -

and using stars as lucky charms,

I’ll protect from most of Nature’s harms.

“To help maintain my steady state,

’e’er trees are felled, please hesitate.

When mites shave forests off my chin,

deserts spread across my skin.

“As my heart’s pulse; hot magma boils:

when it’s disturbed my spring recoils.

In circling as your time-piece rock,

I need to regulate my clock.

“Please - oil-men curb excessive lust.

Stop drilling holes in my weak crust.

This year resolve to think of me,

from listening to this honest plea.”

Raymond Groves