Solar Years Poem by Harley White

How long would a year be were we to dwell
on a planet other than Earth,
albeit within solar carousel
where we'd relish our present mirth,

assuming that we were ‘we' adaptive
in body functions and so on
instead of in form and feature captive
to the environs we grow on?

Though the premise may seem a bit flimsy
for the astro-poems I write
which are themed hardly ever in whimsy
nonetheless in mind came to light

this length of a year planetary thread
for my current rhyming caprice.
Thus I'll follow as the motif has led
to where inspiration shall cease.

A year would be nearly doubled on Mars
while on Mercury four times less.
On Venus our birthday wishes on stars
would come one third sooner I guess.

A Jupiter year is a whopping twelve
compared to terrestrial time
on lovely blue dot where we dig and delve
and live out humanity's prime,

while on Saturn with its celestial rings
a year would be twenty-nine here,
in fact a bit more, where we'd try our wings
so to speak, in rare atmosphere.

Then Uranus with its eighty-four years
in relation to ours at home
though the days there are short to spend with peers
and it moves in retrograde roam

‘round the Sun— what planet have I left out?
distant Neptune, last but not least,
with its four seasons each lasting about
forty years, so greatly increased

from what we think of as seasonal length
‘neath the vault of heavens' above,
where humans display their antics of strength
past limits of push comes to shove.

Even though talented in many ways,
we're animals still at the core.
Some seem never satisfied in their craze
to amass ever more and more.

And yet others differ in what they crave
having no wish riches to flaunt.
Could karma be shaping how they behave
so that deeper desires may haunt?

Our hubris might finally do us in
as happened with Icarus too,
at least metaphorically akin
when too close to the sun he flew

which melted his wings constructed of wax,
such a hotheaded lad was he,
and stopped him in his proverbial tracks—
oh what fools we mortals can be…