The developers, if they decide to move a tortoise, have to pay the long-term costs for enhancing the areas that take care of the tortoise, and it gives us the opportunity to manage an area that is going to be protected.
quote by Gale Norton

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A tortoise
the tortoise is just inadequate
she has been treating
the same way everyone
of another kind
a supercilious front
to shroud weaknesses
broadcasting insouciance
with a hard hard shell
she knows she has a birthright
a hard headed advantage
with its shell signed
with letters from heaven
nobody is allowed even to knock on
it, protected species
here she is behaving in ways
that turn people away
without even knowing why
ten thousand years from now
she would be still in her same state
and behaving the same way
one big curvy hard hard shell
as the world shuttles to a new sphere
poor tortoise! poor tortoise!
poem by John Tiong Chunghoo

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Tortosise and the Hare: The true story
So you think tortoise
won the race,
not so.
Today the last
of Hare's descendants
passed on.
Oh his death
bed from his
lips came this,
my great, great
so many grandfather
was bribed,
to throw the race,
to the Tortoise
by the way of carrots,
his greatest weakness
you didn't really think
the Tortoise could have
won do you. Then he passed on.
wrote 4-14-07
The Tortoise (Love Poem)
This girl came to my party,
And petted my tortoise,
In nineteen sixty four,
When I was eight, and
No-one noticed, not even me.
She still complains today
That she missed out on
Her jelly and ice-cream,
When she was seven, and
No one noticed, not even me.
I think when ten years later this
Beautiful blonde said yes, she
Would be mine, and is today, this
Tortoise slow was still around, and
No one noticed, not even me.
I tell our children now grown-up,
That I have found a tortoise is
The perfect way to find the girl,
Who will be yours forever, when
You are eight and she is seven.
poem by Ian Beckett

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A Tortoise's World!
Story of a tortoise who hid in his shell
Under the rock in the well
That is where it would dwell
Until one day a frog chased by a snake, did fell
Both, tortoise and frog were friends since they met
They had so much to talk, a lot of fun, you bet
Frog wanted to go home, leave a new friend, not to forget
Frog left, promised, soon it shall return and bring friends to get
Days passed and tortoise was sad and lonely
It rained and rained, and then came the day lovely
Frog came and came Frogs, croaking and singing jolly
Also were there tortoises, fishes and snails, Joy filled the world wholly!
poem by Manjeshwari P MYSORE

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Watch The Race
Watch the race
Here is the hare
And the tortoise
It is funny for the hare
And a serious game
For tortoise.
poem by Gajanan Mishra

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Alankar(Decor) -69
Their Race Yet Not Over(Kyrielle Poem)
a narrative, it tells a story.
stanzaic, in quatrains.
syllabic, each line is 8 syllables. in iambic tetrameter.
written with a refrain in the 4th line of the quatrain.
rhyme scheme may vary. Quatrain options abaB, cbcB, dbdB
Their race yet not over with that
Else way tortoise as thought to race
To run, to swim in halves, to work-
Agreed the hare willing to race
Starting speeded with hare on land
Plodding slowed with tortoise to race
To help the river came on hand
Swam fast tortoise won first the race
Knowing not to swim the hare lost
Foolish was his challenge to race
Judging oneself the best way last
Is the way best to win the race
poem by Indira Renganathan

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Let Us Be Friendly With Everybody!
Rabbit and Tortoise
Went for a race;
Envy villain rabbit
Threw the stone at Hero Rabbit;
Hero Rabbit's leg got broken,
Limping Rabbit couldn't run fast!
Hero Rabbit lost the match,
This is how Tortoise won the race.
Lesson is, 'Don't have enmity'
Let us be friendly with everybody!
poem by V.K. Kanniappan

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A broken string of a Cello
The poet TYP (Pseudonym) in the poetfreak who introduced me the greatest cellist Jaquueline Mary du Pre. Merits for him!
Jaqueline Mary du Pre was a British Cellist
One of the great players,
Her career was cut short
By multiple *Scierosis, which forced her to cease
Performing at the age 28, and led to her premature death
At the age of 42.
Death always a dilemma for me?
Just imagine a hard shell tortoise lives for a long
And this poor human beings bring to the guillotine
Within a short period?
Who thinks human being's a guinea pig for their experiments?
Anyway it's not fair indeed and the guise of the Life is ridiculous!
* Abnormal hardening of the body tissue?
Human should get only the soul and live a long like the tortoise!
poem by Nimal Dunuhinga

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Emotions Walk
Sorrow took the bus
to town and met
Happy at the square
but Happy was too busy
so Sorrow went on
vacation with Solitude
who though a bit crazy
was quite a listener, dude
Sorrow decided to change
his name and so became
Relieved, Relieved ran
a marathon with Happy
hare, and Sorrow the
tortoise like snail, Relieved
was not in the perpetual
competition between the
Tortoise and the Hare
and reflected the scenery
better to the spectators there
poem by Ludvig Von Himmelstein

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What You Are Saying
you once said
you are unhappy
you live on this hard shell
of a tortoise
and your burden
is such that you cannot
really move freely
as a bird with its wings
you wish the burden
melts into your skin
and it is done
then you say
the skin binds you
and the flesh and bone
are burdens too
you want something
lighter like the feathers
of a free bird
something light and easy
and verily free
and it is done
i am happy to see
you flying in the skies
doing some acrobatics
in space
chirping some melodies
under the trees
diving in the sea
teasing the rivers
and this hovering
on the cows
and today i hear
a different song
a sad song from a bird
by my window
it is you
you want to return
to the hard shell of
the tortoise
you miss the silence
and the privacy
of your hiding
now, you have doubts
what burdens are
what freedom is
and this cannot just
be easily done
poem by Ric S. Bastasa

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358
you once said
you are unhappy
you live on this hard shell
of a tortoise
and your burden
is such that you cannot
really move freely
as a bird with its wings
you wish the burden
melts into your skin
and it is done
then you say
the skin binds you
and the flesh and bone
are burdens too
you want something
lighter like the feathers
of a free bird
something light and easy
and verily free
and it is done
i am happy to see
you flying in the skies
doing some acrobatics
in space
chirping some melodies
under the trees
diving in the sea
teasing the rivers
and this hovering
on the cows
and today i hear
a different song
a sad song from a bird
by my window
it is you
you want to return
to the hard shell of
the tortoise
you miss the silence
and the privacy
of your hiding
now, you have doubts
what burdens are
what freedom is
and this cannot just
be easily done
poem by Ric S. Bastasa

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Beautiful Mind
Dwelling in the crown
creating illusions through imagination
raising hopes and expectations
causing perplexity and confusion
an illusion as real as the truth
and the truth subject to perception
good and evil both vie for the supremacy
like the tortoise and the hare respectively
thoughts and actions playing in their hands
abetting the fight sometimes
clouding the sunshine
but not always.
Righteous
ultimately seeking the right path slowly
casting away the seven sins
the mind wins
like the tortoise.
---x-----
All rights reserved/Tribhawan Kaul
poem by Tribhawan Kaul

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Not In My Backyard
The local residents are all up in arms,
Worried that their town may lose its charm.
With hundreds of new houses, they are faced,
But plans to oppose them, are firmly in place.
Developers have been granted planning permission,
But now, residents are all busy signing a petition.
Faced with losing their precious fields of green,
The local residents are obviously not at all keen.
Worried about the thriving woods and animals,
To oppose the plans, there's been many a call.
By the new plans, will be very greatly affected,
The Great Crested Newt, which is protected.
The proposed plans have been on display
At the local community centre, for many a day.
The new development will obscure the view,
But the developers have argued this isn't true.
Meetings have been held, and the discussions
Have focused upon the possible repercussions.
The council argue that there's a need for progression,
But this has been met by the angry locals' aggression.
The area has remained untouched for many years;
That the new estate will spoil it, there are now fears.
The residents just want to be left to live in peace,
And for all this sudden madness just to cease.
The residents want the developers to see the light,
And hope that they will end up winning the fight.
The locals wish the developers would go away,
But the chances are, that they are here to stay.
poem by Angela Wybrow

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Jackie III
Fat as grease and slow as the tortoise,
I am like a virgin who is now betrothed;
But, take care of the woman you've humbled,
Because, Jackie is the name of my friend.
poem by Edward Kofi Louis

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Tortoise Family Connections
On he goes, the little one,
Bud of the universe,
Pediment of life.
Setting off somewhere, apparently.
Whither away, brisk egg?
His mother deposited him on the soil as if he were no more than droppings,
And now he scuffles tinily past her as if she were an old rusty tin.
A mere obstacle,
He veers round the slow great mound of her --
Tortoises always foresee obstacles.
It is no use my saying to him in an emotional voice:
'This is your Mother, she laid you when you were an egg.'
He does not even trouble to answer: 'Woman, what have I to do with thee?'
He wearily looks the other way,
And she even more wearily looks another way still,
Each with the utmost apathy,
Incognisant,
Unaware,
Nothing.
As for papa,
He snaps when I offer him his offspring,
Just as he snaps when I poke a bit of stick at him,
Because he is irascible this morning, an irascible tortoise
Being touched with love, and devoid of fatherliness.
Father and mother,
And three little brothers,
And all rambling aimless, like little perambulating pebbles scattered in the garden,
Not knowing each other from bits of earth or old tins.
Except that papa and mama are old acquaintances, of course,
Though family feeling there is none, not even the beginnings.
Fatherless, motherless, brotherless, sisterless
Little tortoise.
Row on then, small pebble,
Over the clods of the autumn, wind-chilled sunshine,
Young gaiety.
Does he look for a companion?
No, no, don't think it.
He doesn't know he is alone;
Isolation is his birthright,
This atom.
To row forward, and reach himself tall on spiny toes,
To travel, to burrow into a little loose earth, afraid of the night,
To crop a little substance,
To move, and to be quite sure that he is moving:
Basta!
To be a tortoise!
Think of it, in a garden of inert clods
A brisk, brindled little tortoise, all to himself --
Adam!
In a garden of pebbles and insects
To roam, and feel the slow heart beat
Tortoise-wise, the first bell sounding
From the warm blood, in the dark-creation morning.
Moving, and being himself,
Slow, and unquestioned,
And inordinately there, O stoic!
Wandering in the slow triumph of his own existence,
Ringing the soundless bell of his presence in chaos,
And biting the frail grass arrogantly,
Decidedly arrogantly.
poem by David Herbert Lawrence

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It's the tortoise's shell, ugly and hard that protects its life long journey on earth.
Tortoise Shell
The Cross, the Cross
Goes deeper in than we know,
Deeper into life;
Right into the marrow
And through the bone.
Along the back of the baby tortoise
The scales are locked in an arch like a bridge,
Scale-lapping, like a lobster's sections
Or a bee's.
Then crossways down his sides
Tiger-stripes and wasp-bands.
Five, and five again, and five again,
And round the edges twenty-five little ones,
The sections of the baby tortoise shell.
Four, and a keystone;
Four, and a keystone;
Four, and a keystone;
Then twenty-four, and a tiny little keystone.
It needed Pythagoras to see life playing with counters on the living back
Of the baby tortoise;
Life establishing the first eternal mathematical tablet,
Not in stone, like the Judean Lord, or bronze, but in life-clouded, life-rosy tortoise shell.
The first little mathematical gentleman
Stepping, wee mite, in his loose trousers
Under all the eternal dome of mathematical law.
Fives, and tens,
Threes and fours and twelves,
All the volte face of decimals,
The whirligig of dozens and the pinnacle of seven.
Turn him on his back,
The kicking little beetle,
And there again, on his shell-tender, earth-touching belly,
The long cleavage of division, upright of the eternal cross
And on either side count five,
On each side, two above, on each side, two below
The dark bar horizontal.
The Cross!
It goes right through him, the sprottling insect,
Through his cross-wise cloven psyche,
Through his five-fold complex-nature.
So turn him over on his toes again;
Four pin-point toes, and a problematical thumb-piece,
Four rowing limbs, and one wedge-balancing head,
Four and one makes five, which is the clue to all mathematics.
The Lord wrote it all down on the little slate
Of the baby tortoise.
Outward and visible indication of the plan within,
The complex, manifold involvednes,s of an individual creature
Plotted out
On this small bird, this rudiment,
This little dome, this pediment
Of all creation,
This slow one.
poem by David Herbert Lawrence

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To The Students
y do u think u r ill,
is it bcoz xam fear u feel.
is it bcoz u think too much abt marks,
or is it coz if u fail your future darks.
does dis mean,
it is true what we have in past seen.
student die boz of stress due to xam,
i suggest u dont do it fam...
y dont u understand.......
dis s not da tym ur hopes plane sud land...
u need to do in lyf lot of thing,
and dere still remains ur lyf to sing.
its tym everyone sud give a second thought,
remember da passion with which your parents fought.
think for whom did dey do dis before,
u do anything worse more.
remember about the tortoise and hare tale,
in which the tortoise did nt fail.
though s/he was slow,
s/he didnot let his/her heart go low..
so pals lets have fun,
and lets say all dis tym its done.
lets show it to all,
we rise and rise high every time we fall..........................
poem by Ajitav Basak

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An Interesting Ancestry
To some of us, a tortoise lives on land
while turtles only rarely leave the sea.
‘Chelonians' applies to any brand,
so here I'll use this terminology.
Land dwellers share aquatic ancestry
and most of us decided to stay put.
Chelonians agreed to disagree.
A flippered revolution was afoot.
A late Triassic turtle fossil shows
a hard-shelled belly plate and softer back,
presumably to ward off fatal blows
from deeper-dwelling predators' attack.
Did top shell metaphorically ‘dissolve'
when full-shelled forebear sought the sea's embrace?
Or did an unshelled forebear's shell evolve
in oceanic pilgrimage retrace?
Genetic sleuthing points to latter case.
The evidence suggests that once again,
the tortoise forebears left their liquid space
and plodded (swam?) to shore with sigh, 'amen'. *
From sea to shore to sea to shore once more.
You'd surely think a record lies therein.
Yet maybe making not three trips but four
is water loving cousin terrapin.
When next you gaze with love in tortoise eyes
and wonder at his mind's soliloquy,
from languid, longing looks you may surmise,
he's pondering ‘To sea or not to sea'.
poem by Diane Hine

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