Welcome to Planet Earth
By John Herlihy

Welcome to Planet Earth!
Allow me to show you around.
You will be happy to learn that mysteries abound,
Even the answer to a lost question can be found.
Life you ask? Yes, there is life here on earth,
Life that has flourished since the time of its birth,
Vegetation, trees, flowers, and the beauty of precious stones,
Animals, humans and the sun-baked residue of bleached bones.
Surprised you seem, as if this is the first time you encounter,
A living planet so unique that nothing can surmount her.

The earth has flourished as a planet, solitary in the universe,
Floating thru space as a glass marble that seems downright perverse,
That such a magical mystery tour can happen in outer space,
Universal law created to support the existence of the human race.
Billions of galaxies, billions of stars, billions of planets all in orbit,
Specks of lights all of them circling in unison around a central vortex.
Planet Earth imitating the universal cycle by orbiting around the sun,
Tilted purposefully on its axis as it makes way on its yearly run.
An orbiting globe that enjoys the four episodes of the seasons,
Each one of them in a kind of betrayal as an act of treason.

Frigid winter, awakening spring, flower-decked summer, magical fall,
These flexible humans live through such diversity not bothered at all.
Twice a day the earth surrenders to a brief transition of madness;
Night turns brilliantly into day, then light turns grimly into darkness.
The earth experiences more than the dramatic change of night into day;
The weather across the globe sends forth temperatures wildly at play.
The freezing cold produces hanging icicles and the hush of falling snow;
Summer’s warmth produces trees and flowers that flourish and grow.
The winds bring a force that shakes the trees and stirs up the dust;
The clouds bring rain that nourishes the land and turns metal to rust.

Can’t hear you? What’s that you’re saying: You have to take your leave.
You see buildings scraping the sky in crowded cities with huddled masses.
You sense evil-smelling odors that reek of pollution and suffocating gases.
You fear for your life, you say, if you continue your visit much too long?
I understand: You are in search of a land that echoes a harmonious song.
Good-bye, my sweet angel, and thank you for your most welcome visit.
Come in another earth cycle, when you don’t have to ask: What is it?
We are none other than Planet Earth, solitary, unique, one of a kind.
We still harbor elusive mysteries that throughout the globe abound;
But we have lost our question and its answer can no longer be found.