Space Technology

By: NWANOSIKE MICHAEL
                                Aurora

  ‘Twas a humid but hot night…

When I touched outside

Four miles away to be precise_

After I saw a documentary

On TV

  Granules of yellow light sprayed off broken iron

As it slide across a jet of ethene_

The sight of it was pristine_

 …I strolled toward this scene:

Showers of light fragments spread out

(In unison) like stage curtains

To make way

For the faint outline of a man

Wearing a pair of gloves, and a protective mask_

Holding the welders torch…

  I relished the colors on display…

That was at large during the day

  Meanwhile,

In my neighborhood

It was unheard of

A welder working at night shift

  His section of the road_

I repeatedly overlooked_

Suddenly received my unwavering attention,

My mind floated adrift,

The experience that would follow, I guess

Would mean a lot to me…

But memory failed to remind brain

The happenings thereafter

  I was cast into the Arctic Circle

By an angel of imagination

I was filled with the spirit of science

Like the biblical john

  Transfixed into the Ireland of Patmos

The latter I must have to apply, thus

To relate my ordeal

But I am a scientist

And not a Christian

To be precise

  On the same spot

I fixed my gaze to the skies

A shimmer of lights revealed itself

To my unaided eyes

Like an open scroll

To be precise

 ‘Twas a blanket of green-blue emissions

From the elements that were likely

To hold a stake

In life beneath

  All the spectrum of white light

Made their mark

In curtain folds

Arranged in symmetry

And moving with rhythm in it

 ‘Twas strange there…

I didn’t feel cold…

The ice I stood upon felt wet (all of a sudden)

I withdrew my gaze from skyward

To the horizon

Catching sight of two sheriffs in a snow mobile

That made harness out of fuel

Closing up on me for being a wanderer…

I even forgot…

Imagination has no boundaries whatsoever

  ‘Twas weird, anyway

An African! Come to think of it…

Living side by side with Eskimo

  I returned to West Africa (on deportation)

The Niger delta to be precise

  The winds of agitation seemed to abate there

The kinsmen finally reap oil

For all their wish and toil_

But there was problem_

  The outside world was recovering

From the consequences of oil glut

…But the engineers

...Indiscriminately lit gas flares

In oil facilities scattered here and there…

Like Olympic torches telling humanity

That those activities to mark

The worlds undoing

Has begun…

In contrast, few still campaign

In favor of clean emissions

On a planet where global warming

 Had already taken its toll…

Dirty carbon and its allies... are members

Of the greenhouse family!

It’s just that they aren’t environmentally friendly;

They keep boring holes through the layer of ozone

The latter which is sunscreen

 To life on earth 

 

 

  In the light of these warnings:

Find a solution to the oil addiction…

Use it as seed…

For bio-substances which are ecologically friendly…

‘Stead of striking a match to it...

 …seems nobody listened all the while

  On a spring equinox (12noon)

Rainy season to be precise

The conflict between light and darkness

Was the reason longer night to shorter day!

Became paradox

  The sky went pitch black…

That the air was clothed in massive soot fumes

Was the reason why many babies…

Were choking to death

  The ozone depleting substances which had spoiled the ozone…

Was the reason why cancer

Drew familiar to dark skin

‘Twas chaos everywhere

A common man need not be a scientist

To deduce that white light

Meant a whole lot to life

And black light

Has no spectrum…

  Aurora lives nowhere

Save the atmosphere

Surrounding the poles

Where… the ozone above…

Have few holes

On its blanket

  Where the elements

Lining the summit of the skies

Are so clean

As to produce… lights

That eventually transformed my life forever

  Accounts rendered by arctic dwellers …

About the aurora borealis

Would make many want to flee

But… it did not even hurt

A black man like me_

Even in nightmare…

  I regained consciousness

From what turned out to be some collapse

To find myself in the hospital bed

Beside a welder

  “Please weld in my broken nerve fiber…”

I uttered loud …

“’twas a slip of tongue”

I quickly added_

…everybody in the room… burst in laughter