Forests Where God Rests Poem by Aniruddha Pathak

If there be a place in world, a big beast
Has nary a bone nor bugbear the least,
Where all life lives in hallowed harmony,
And conflicts confined should maws get hungry.

If there be place where plenitude prevails,
Where no dweller grabs governed by the greed,
Plenty prevails when each heeds to this creed,
Abandoned, goddess of greed where now wails.

A place where world of life is left alone,
Where cleanliness code of the self prevails,
Where any a decay soonest is gone,
Waste and wealth get where the same weighty cares.

If there's a place that breathes new life to all—
A green lung where breathes for all of planet,
Where all life-forms cohabit, big or small—
What civilised world scarce can emulate.

A place, ancient Indic texts did extol1
A life divine spirit would well uplift,
A place to meditate and touch the soul,
What to mankind bequeathed as Nature's gift.

A place with sacrifice, service-imbued,
The dead where served as much as the alive,
Dead trees as wood where vie for common good,
Such a place man is out man to deprive!

Greeted by woods man was a welcome guest,
He's lost old wisdom: God dwells in forest.
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1. Mahabharata, the epic which can be as old as 5000 years, has many a verse which extols the virtues of woods and forests— plants and animal species.

Forests wherein God dwells and which act as lungs for all life, are getting destroyed on a daily basis. Rainforests at one time covered more than 14 percent of the Earth's surface. Today they have dwindled to less than six per cent.
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Reflections | 04.06.10 |