Ode to the tallest mountain peak

O thou world’s tallest mount of might, Like a gawky adolescent, Added hast thou to thy old height, I bow to thy quickest ascent. Thou, with thy siblings so many In the abode of hoary snow, At fifty million years of age, With Eurasian plate had a blow. And where there was a roaring sea There came tall peaks that kissed the sky-- A snow abode in Himalaya That dwarfed all its siblings well-nigh. O Mother Earth’s youngest mountain, Like all youths ye grow ever since, And off late with little restrain, I bow to thy height-causing genes. Thou wert known by many a name-- Chomolungma, one of them-- Goddess of the mountain valley, Tibetans’ spiritual emblem. In Nepal thou art known as Sagarmatha, variation From the original Sanskrit, That meant ‘the peak head of heaven’. And Indians had had their own names: Giri Shikhar, peak of a mount, Gauri Shankar yet another, Many, one may quite lose the count. And yet, the Brits borrowed one more, And for no reason forced Everest That hardly fits to thy pied lore, I’d more rather Mt Neverest! Yet, Everest ruled o’er the rest, Thou wert put to test, long unrest, When they got to thy highest crest, To thee, new burden on thy chest! ____________________________ Ode |17.10.2024| mountain Poet’s note: ‘New burden on thy chest’ alludes to the fact that Everest has today become a junkyard of things discarded by scores of climbers.