The Maundering Moon

Like every child I used to follow the moon Maundering in the sky And wonder what he's doing All through the lonely nights all alone in the skies With all those fireflies Winking around. When I grew up And left my home And my loved ones In search of a livelihood, I started to sing With Jagjit Singh, "I have left my home, But, in my place The moon would have risen; In his nightly abode How lonely would he be feeling! (Without me to keep him company) ! " In the school We had learned that The moon would be Older by over a second By the time I see him. But in the case of sun It is eight minutes. For, light travels at three hundred thousand Kilometres a second. If only I could ride light! My bus to the school Traveled at forty kilometres an hour. Very fast for those days And the roads we had. I wondered, if the bus were To take us to the moon, How long would it take? We made the calculations: It takes four hundred days! Then came Luna Nine and Luna Ten The unmanned Russian satellites That softlanded on the moon and sent us its photographs. More news - newspapers Suddenly were in high demand. At home, we sat around the radio With our ears glued to it. Pele and Billie Jean King Were pushed to the back seats. In the school, the science teacher Gave us more information On the Apollo lunar expeditions. I had just turned twelve When Apollo Eleven Blasted off from Florida Kennedy Space Center. And four days later Neil Armstrong set His foot on the moon. World was not the same Thereafter. Nor was the moon.