Hailed Her, Held'Er, Scaled'Er Trampling On Her Grounds Poem by Erhard Hans Josef Lang

* in commemoration of the victims of the November 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai *

Once in days of long before
They hailed her, then
Held her in awe divine -
Upon the grand awakening, in the early days
After the coming of
The human Child out of the lap of nature.

We today, who meanwhile for so long
Have been plodding on in
This greatest adventure through all universal times,
Now might say:
'We had held'er and we have scaled'er,
The one who ought to be
Most hallowed among all to be hailed
Whom but we had allowed ourselves so much to be abused' -

We - the people,
She - our Mother earth -

As we've reared her children, who again reaped the fruits of her lands
For hundreds and thousands of years,
Skilfully and industrious, better than
Bees or ants or any other beasts possibly could have done it,
So we think,
Our hearts swelling up with human grandeur
In our self-determined, wizened rise above the animals' rough life
in one's pursuit of survival,

Embellishing the cherry-blossom cheeks on
Earth Mother's face of nurtured nature's lively moulds
With evermore intelligently artefacted
Layers of multi-faceted crops of
All kinds of human assets,

Ultimately, all of it topped with an ingenious snapshot
Of our own home planet
We've eventually managed to take from outer space
Against the planetary bounds of gravity,

As we're communicating through extensions of
Human mind across the distances
With invented gadgets of our own design.

While endlessly plying our nitty-gritty world's tiny rounds
In this grand spectacular cosmic arena
Shined on by our iridescent
Prolongations of the
Light from the Sun,
Our parental planet's source of fire,

Whilst, amongst ourselves, we're found as
Incessantly being focused in
On who of us exactly were Who,
Which of ours exactly were Which -
Which of the many different characters, visages
Of our own stock, of the other people were how to be reckoned on,
Best to be dealt with,
Which of the many different ways people take to walking on were
The most recommendable one of all the others.

Nature spurned life into existence,
To surprise the divine cosmic visionaire
With the gift of shaping up things seen in mind
In solid matter, and
It spurns life, onward to go, by
The power of mothers of love, who
All of them are emulating the love of our greatest, our primal Mother,
Most passionate a lover,
Who can be a terrible fighter, too, on behalf of her beloved children,
If she's driven mad by one or the other
In her big family garden,

As basic, and sometimes even radical, therefore likewise we, too,
Her children, have a tendency to be,
When it comes to loving our own breed.

Then, how about that shortage in brotherly love and
Understanding as witnessed daily
Within this grown-up family of our humankind consisting of
Different creeds, habits and outlooks in life? -

After all of us once having hailed her,
During our younger days all of us
Having held her in close embrace,
Explored her every angle, nook and cranny,
Growing quite safely on her bosom,
Scaled all her challenging peaks at our own risk,
Delved into all of her wondrous depths,
On this our fantastic Mother Earth's gorgeous body,
Eventually having worked out giant masterplans of
How to finally beat all our little physical wants
And higher needs as imagined,
To be able to smoothen that harsh harness
Placed around naked crude life,
As by now,
In the wake of our customized conveniences,
We're seen conducting ourselves
Happily puffing it away on Her wasteland's
Well hidden energy-packed treasures,
Whenever getting ourselves on the go
Wherever, however
At all times -?

Humanity, when
Looked upon as a whole,
Appears to be until now, and
Despite greatest acclaimed achievements of comfort
In the shared residence under our skies,
One big troubled family, nevertheless,
Troubled still by so many things, all
Because of an inborn sloth or
An egotistic protective shell of hate or loathe,

Or is it all strictly because of that bedraggled money
We have made our secret ruler of the hearth,
Meant to propel the quickening of our means of livelihood, by all means?

'We are the good people on earth', say the ones,
'We are the good people on earth, ' say the others.

'We were your old friends and neighbours,
Always, at the least, have been as good as you yourselves,
At most times even better, and
Therefore why shouldn't we then deserve a treatment fully apar with yours,
You, who have betrayed our blood line,
Of the same amount of attention
From those of our modern world's most privileged and their capital boosters
So much needed by everyone of us to stay afloating
In the globalized world market of fair vanities,
And even if it meant we had to fight for our rights with force'

(While most often times it's more like
We're dealing with cheat-necked self-infatuated cracked heads
Boastful of their own riches
Floating their capital's proceeds all around the world,
As they're developing it, solely
For their own gettin' bloated up more and more
Rather than that they were the saviour-spirited
Savvy boosters of poor nations
For good old humanity's sake that
They're taken for by those
Blinded by the trail of gold dust ever seen flurrying up in the air,
With the skyway of the jets that
Bring in the dreamt-of luxuries
Served out by humanitarian heavenly damsels)

'Boom, boom, bang, bang, shoot, shoot'
'Boom, boom, bang, bang, shoot, shoot'-

Helter Skelter -

Speak the guns in the hands of the terrified desolate
Underdog heroes of the belittled other good clan's neighbour,
Gone desperate.

'Hailed Her, Held'er, Scaled'er
Trampling on Her grounds.'

Wouldn't it be enough of the face washing for now, dearest Mother Earth,
That maybe already by tomorrow
We, all of us together, will install you again to be our world's true queen,
With your glorious head high up in miraculous heavens and
Your feet seen again stepping human grounds,
Lightening our burdens,
As we'll be shown which way to follow
To reach to a wholly new season of life's blooming
At the side of our Mother Earth rejoicing again for once, and
Subsequently rejuvenating?