Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Ki bujhechi-কি বুঝেছি

 
কি বুঝেছি?

আমার জীবন, অতি সাধারন। 
নেই গো তাতে হীরে-রতন। 
ঘোসে-মেজে বাসন, চালিয়েছি তাও, 
করেছি আয়, আয়োজন।

ভোরের আলোয় জেগেছে আশা। 
সাঁঝের সাথে এসেছে ক্লান্তি। 
দিনের বেলায় করেছি কাজ। 
শেষের বেলায় চেয়েছি শান্তি।

কত রকমের নিষ্ঠুরতা, 
কত চেতনের কান্না, হায়! 
নির্বিকারে, হৃদয় ঢেকে, 
চলছে পথে, সবাই প্রায়।

কারোর জীবন কষ্টে কাটে, 
কারোর সহজ পথে। 
ধুঁকতে ধুঁকতে লক্ষ হাটে।
কেউ ভেসে যায় রথে।

এই জীবনের স্রোতে ভেসে, 
ভুগেছি কত দুঃখে ক্লেশে। 
দেখেছি কত দয়া, মায়া। 
কি বুঝেছি, সবের শেষে?

অনেক দেখে, অনেক ভেবে
লবডঙ্কা, গোল্লা, জিরো!
তাই,  হতাশায়, আবোল-তাবোল 
পদ্য লিখে, হচ্ছি হিরো।

সোমবার, ১৮ মার্চ, ২০২৪ খ্রি.
বার্ক্লি, ক্যালিফর্নিয়া

Thursday, March 14, 2024

Be Open

 

Be Open


We’re driven not by reason but

By instincts and by feelings, yet

Our reason helps us on our way

And guards us from the snare and net.


And how can instincts, feelings work

When hearts have hardened or are dead,

And eyes and ears are closed to all

Except the comfort-views we're fed?


******


And how can caring, justice thrive

When hatred makes us deaf and blind,

Ignoring pleas, believing lies,

And shutting down the heart and mind?


Question, question what you know,

And turn away from comfort-news.

Resist the laziness of mind.

Be open, yes, to facts and views.


******


Beware the call, resist the urge

To demonize or deify—

To make supreme a god, a race,

A culture or to glorify


A nation or a class, or lift 

On high religion, custom, creed, 

A system of economy,

Or justify the wars of greed.


******


Do recognize what evil is.

Resist the call to turn to hate,

To cast the others down, despise,

Subdue, oppress, exterminate.


No god needs help from humans and

No creed needs other views suppressed,

Except the god or creed that fears

What might, by humans, be expressed.


******


We tend to worship those “above”

And spit upon the ones “below”.

Beware the virus that infects 

And leads to thoughts of “high” and “low”.


Beware of leaders! Be not led

Except by sanity of head

And purity of heart. Be open.

Live, until you're truly dead.


2024 March 14th, Thu.

Berkeley, California


Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Sacrilege

 
Sacrilege

The only g*n*cide memorialized,
The only one in which we all are drilled,
Repeatedly, through schools and books and films,
With monuments erected, tributes paid,
With pilgrimages due, from those on high
Before we vote, is that which stands alone.

No other slaughters, even those that cleared
The continents on which we settlers live,
Can ever be compared to that Event
Of horror that is singular, unique.

And so our taxes can be used to send
Not only funds but lethal armaments
With which to maim and slaughter thousands. This
Cannot be questioned, nor compared to that—
The One whose name is all but deified.

So through this means, such horrors still are wrought
As might make even hardened mobsters pause
And yet are waved away or justified—
For there can only be that G*n*cide—
That One, that Only, Duly Guarded Thing—
That shields the ones who massacre and starve,
With critics charged with vilest heresy.

And so it is that all the horrors past
And all the ones succeeding that Event 
Of special, primal status, never count,
Nor those that happen right before our eyes.

So truth itself is buried deep in lies,
As bodies are—the dead or still alive—
Beneath the tons of wreckage. Still, we see
The women, children, elders, blasted, burned,
With cats and humans, huddled, homeless, starved,
And lies repeated—till a nation dies.

And some of us have slowly come to know
That even mentions of the victims or
Their land had been forbidden, seen as crimes,
Within the realms of those who’ve realized
With ardent help from other nations, this—
The crime of crimes. And now, in other lands,
The moves are underway, or well in place,
To stem the images and stop the words. 

The goal is not to simply end the lives—
And so the people—but to wipe, erase
The names themselves. What’s nameless can’t exist—
Or so the thinking and the feeling goes,
As power and wealth direct our human flows
And shape our sets of facts, our thoughts and views
By every means—including nightly news.

So is this something new? No, not at all,
Except for what those windows let us see
And hear, as if the ones who sobbed and screamed
Or spoke to us in fright, in measured tones,
Were present where we are, and not where lives
Are snuffed like candles by the blasts of bombs. 

And so we now will see those windows close,
Unless we rise together and resist
And dare to say the word we’ve all been told
Is sacrilege—and yet is naught but truth.

For what had occurred in the past and then
Repeated in our lifetimes is again 
Revived and walking, dressed in black, with scythe,
But wielding now the weapons we have wrought
That burn and blast and bury thousands, while
We coddle those who perpetrate these crimes. 

2024 March 12th, Tue.
Berkeley, California


Monday, March 11, 2024

Tuccho, apon be'tha-তুচ্ছ, আপন ব্যথা

 
তুচ্ছ, আপন ব্যথা
 
 দুর্ভাগ্যদের দশা দেখি, দুঃখ-ভরা মনে
চোখের কোণায় কান্না আসে, বুকে লাগে ব্যথা
 
রাগও আসে, জোয়ার-স্রোতে, ভাটার টানে যায়
কি করা, ভাই, কেবল ভাবি দেখছি শুধু, হায়!
কিছুটুকু চাঁদা পাঠাই, কিছু পাতা লিখি
বুঝি, সব-ই ব্যর্থ শেষে শিক্ষা, কঠোর, শিখি
 
এই টুকু তাও ভরসা দেখিআলোর ঝিলিক, কোণে
আত্মা, নিজের দুঃখে হাসে তুচ্ছ, আপন ব্যথা
 
 রবিবার, ১০ মার্চ, ২০২৪ খ্রি.
 বার্ক্লি, ক্যালিফর্নিয়া.
 
 

Sunday, March 10, 2024

Progoti-প্রগতি

 
প্রগতি
 
 প্রগতির গান গাইছো তুমি—
 নতুন যুগের জয়।
 নিষ্ঠুরতার অন্ত কোথায়?
 জীবের চোখে ভয়।
 বোমার ঝড়ে ঝাঁকছে ভূমি,
 কাঁপছে শিশু, হায়!
 
 মা-বাবা যে কোথায় গেলো!
 কোথায়, দিদি-দাদা?
 এই প্রগতির দাপট দেখে,
 ভাসছে চোখে ধাঁধা।
রাত পোহালো, প্রভাত এলো
ধুঁকছে, রক্ত মেখে

এই প্রগতির উগ্র প্রচার 
হচ্ছে যতই দেশে,
গানের ধ্বনি উঠছে জেগে 
ততই তীব্র ক্লেশে।
 
 রবিবার, ১০ মার্চ, ২০২৪ খ্রি.
 বার্ক্লি, ক্যালিফর্নিয়া
.
 
 

Wednesday, March 6, 2024

Music?

 
Music?
 
Does music tell us of a culture’s soul? 
If so, then ours is torn and wracked indeed
With rage, frustration—lacking bliss and peace,
Reflecting, darkly, worlds of fear and greed.
If music turns to a tool for torture, then 
What chance is there for healing, born of Zen?
 
Our music once had grace, with Nature's sounds,
The moods of seasons and of times of day.
These touched the heart and gently moved the soul,
And so returned us towards the peaceful way.
But now, of all of this, there's little trace.
Its guns and pistons lead away from grace. 
 
We should not rush to blame the music. It
Is but a mirror of the world we've built.
We’re disconnected from the rest of life—
Absorbed in self, avoiding silence, guilt. 
And so we deafen ears and dazzle eyes. 
Our soul's disturbance speaks in music’s guise.
 
2024 March 6th, Wed.
Berkeley, California
 

Monday, March 4, 2024

Beyond the Bounds of Tense

 
Beyond the Bounds of Tense

The present moment—that is all
We have—and yet it flies.
Beyond the here and now—the rest—
Has more of myth than truth.
We long in vain for permanence
And cling to our beliefs.
How precious are our memories,
And yet, they hide the root.

The Buddhas and the Jinas saw
The unity of being,
The suffering of sentients,
The traps that we are in.
The followers of Abraham,
Believing in their god,
Perceived the faults that plague our lives
And labeled these as “sin”.

And so have other streams of thought
And faith in what transcends
The lives we live that start and end
Been part of human sense,
Providing vision, solace, strength, 
Supporting us in grief,
And giving meaning to our lives
Beyond the bounds of tense.

But only when we sink within,
Let all possessions go,
Including love and life itself,
Can truth be truly seen—
Or so we're told by seers whom
We may, or not, believe.
Can each of us, a speck of dust,
Be one with truth, serene?

2024 March 3rd, Sunday
Berkeley, California