Man... Powerful Or Powerless? Poem by AtreyaSarma Uppaluri

With wonder-wide eyes man delved
deep into the myriad mysteries;
Nothing is far! Moon or Mars, or Matter
beyond aeons-long light years of galaxies.

Eagle eyes, inquisitiveness, insatiable thirst
for the invisible, remote, unknown kind
Impel him, propel him, tempt him, prod him -
to ceaselessly try, pry, seek, find,
Cross the continents, scale the peaks,
ransack to the depths the mighty oceans,
Make feverish forays into forests impenetrable,
ferret out flora-fauna facets,
Mince the minuscule molecules into atoms,
subatomic particles, cause fusions, fissions -
In a quest to create, recreate, counter-create,
be defiantly omniscient, omnipotent.

Man, a recondite conundrum! Shining graces
hugging shameful disgraces hell-bent!
Material man explored galore the ores, pores, cores;
nothing unexploited left!
Avaricious man mined the deepest bowels of the earth;
undermined his future to perdition!
Arrant man, the architect of WMD, bio-warfare,
ubiquitous pollution, ozone depletion,
Cannot withal cure a simple common cold,
or cope with the complex calamitous cancer,
Cannot regenerate a lost limb, cannot generate
a whit of universal fraternity either,
Cares not to pre-empt accidents - air, rail or road;
nor to rout the drought, maim the crime!

Man the greedy, conquered, colonized,
decimated other men, races in every clime,
Finished off the wild life merciless, remorseless;
no tree spared, wherever the grounds!

Man is bounded by no boundary;
so his selfishness soars to the skies,
knows no bounds!
What, 'Knowledge is power'? ... er...no,
it is destruction diabolic to a finish close!
Man, powerful? No, powerless!
Blow the wind, fall the rain...
off the power presto goes!
Man the megalomaniac dilates on things distant,
but is blind to those under his very nose!

Man is farsighted but visionless! Nearsighted,
but callous to the nearer ones to nimiety!
God! Reintegrate the lopsided, narcissistic man,
restore his body-mind-heart-soul sobriety!

[Jan 09,2009: : Hyderabad - 500 056]