Misty, wet, spooky,

If you like dingy,

Pitch dark at night,

And if you are luck,

It can only be at most dim at daytime,

It is Canopied earth with

Living green gauze,

Nictitate membrane,

Bulking the sun,

At dawn to rise

And disperse its rays.

Canopied earth - Xanadu,

There can be found

No single glade

Where grass grows tall,

With sharpened blades.

Canopied earth-blessed land of Goddess,

All round covered with

Nictitate membrane,

Including the loft and the floor

By the same garment,

Save for the colours.

That was his original home,

For the most of the time

He spent being groomed and

Looked after by the primordial household.

And in turn he groomed those who did

That of his and his mom.

That was and will remain his home,

For the enter day long,

He swung from tree to tree,

Clung to tendril ivies

And suspended roots,

That looked like diving biblical pythons.

Then as time went by,

Something else he did try.

He learnt new tricks:

To complement his own limbs

And knees,

To journey,

On the back of other animals

He did climb.

Later on he embarked

On a more enduring inventions

He made monsters of his own,

Durable than the mule.

Automated metals,

That could surf,

And run on hard surface.

The material though metal,

He made the behave as if they are

As light as cotton,

That could easily be blown

And airborne like feather

And speed faster than sound could be flown.

Now he has travelled and gone deep and so far,

Approaching the farthest star,

Where no one had travelled thus far

I fear, no ready made maps there are,

And of little help will be the logs,

To assist him steer back home,

To the planet he belongs.

The breed of these days and age

Has gone to the limit of the space edge

And as yet sad to record his venture

He has not come up with salubrious place,

As he had hoped

To erect his modern cottage

Equipped with electronic gadgets,

To replace the planet he has wrecked.

So vast are the space expanses,

That he has traversed,

And too many celestial rules,

That he has transgressed,

I am afraid to say,

The child of the once but now gone

Canopied forest,

Looks like he has gone lost.

He has lost his route,

In the complicated planetary contours,

Fear for his safety,

He may not come back to his roots.

The compass he relayed upon,

In this vast universe,

Is too small to be of any practical use

To guide him back

To his home of youth.

The verdict is, as many experts say,

And it does pretty sway,

Misadventure worth not

The risk and the child had suffered

An accidental death,

Not long after his arduous birth.

Copyright haileselassie Giramy

Draft 22/2/98