The Comet

image from www.stanleygibbons

Back from the New Year break, unable to write some new stuff, dusted out an old poem. This one managed to make it into the national newspaper.

Way back in '86, when Halley's Comet shot past the earth, the Straits Times organised a poetry writing contest to commemorate the event. The first prize was a telescope (Baush & Lomb), which I sort of fancy at that time. Hey, the below poem won that scope, but it is now somewhere in my storeroom gathering fungi.

* * * * * * * * * * *

The Comet

Like clockwork, you returned from an endless celestial journey
           Halley
And we, on this fragile planet, itself hurtling,
we wonder, we dread, we marvel

what you really are, a heart of ice, gas and dust?
           Ha!
Did tyranosaurus rex snarled at you on a visit to primeval Earth?
Or were you making your pilgrimage since the Sun's birth?

      Did you bring about Hastings?
      Did you fell the Qing?

And we, with our computers, our lasers, still call you a stranger,
           Wanderer.
Like a puzzle, you fascinate us, the ancient and the young.
You'll still do, in Twenty-sixty-one.

18.04.86
* * * * * * * *


Maybe Twice In A Lifetime

Note : The contest organiser stipulated that the poem must be less than 100 words. Not much to wriggle about.