O Messenger Of Gods Poem by Aniruddha Pathak

Messenger art thou of nightly heavens,
Smallest of the eight siblings sired by Sun,
Tell me for what crucial errands ye run,
O slow down, do catch thine breath if for once.

Eight long years ago we sent thee a mail
Thru a Messenger Probe named after thee—
Too fast around sun, rotating like snail—
Worried are we O about thine safety.

We could be in touch more, my dear brother,
But there might be a few problems at hand,
One is your scorching red temperature,
And the speed at which ye run thine errand.

Slow down O sprinter, what good so much haste?
Do calm down a bit, ye know haste is waste.
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This poem is on planet Mercury, and is meant for children. It sees Earth as its sister. Mercury is called a messenger of gods because it orbits around the sun with a great speed (87 Earth days): yet, is very slow taking as much as 59 for one rotation on its axis. In 2004, NASA launched Messenger Probe to reach Mercury in 2011, a snail's speed in planetary motions. The surface temperature of Mercury is +1670 C.
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Musings | 02.08.12 |
Topic: star, planet