At Titlis

(A peak in the Swiss Alps at 10,000ft height)

A rare silence dwells here

A spectacle purer than air

Clearer than the crystalline water

The ice, the sky and the mountain high

Hold you spell bound well nigh.

From afar no difference

Betwixt the white sky and the snows.

Man and his waring cares on the one side

On the other, silent, stately peaks and slopes wide.

The dormant snow at places dangerous and grey

Shocks one unaware to one’s dismay

You stumble and slip and break an ankle

If you take it easy on the fields of snow, the fickle

It’s not a welcome sight

To sit and watch man’s aspect

But nature’s touch heals

All kinds of ills and evils.

People come and people go

Kind nature lets not her charm go

Her soothing presence remains so

As in the past, present and forever more.

A poem by Jaya Lakshmi Rao V.