Monua in Boston (revised)

Monua  in Boston (revised)

My sister told me how, in her college days,

She’d traveled from South Hadley, a satellite

Of Amherst town, to busy Boston, where,

One winter’s eve, she waited for a bus –

And everyone that passed by, in that cold

And sullen night, seemed wrapped in such a fog

That none could see through it.  For each was trapped,

It seemed to her, within a private hell.

How much of this was she, and how much they,

Those strangers, passing, in that urban cold,

My sister – born to sun, of sky and heart,

I do not know – for this, she did not tell.

But what she saw were tense expressions – frowns,

That lack of recognition, which our towns

Impose on those who yield.  And this extends

To all around, as if all else were dead.

But this much, I can now surmise, with sight

That I then lacked – that she perhaps was wise,

From isolations that I’d never known,

And so could see, how troubled were those souls,

So locked within themselves – and round and round

In endless circles of frustration bound,

With self consuming self, without an out

From friendship, love, or care for what’s without…

It is this isolation – the living grave

Of urban life within efficient towns,

Where human contact and affections are

Redundant – where so many daily live

As jackals lone, whom Nature made as dogs –

That leads, I think, to higher suicide rates

In Scandinavia, where the Vikings live

In indoor warmth, in winters cold and dark.

They lack, perhaps, that rawest sustenance

That humans give, to others of their kind,

By their demands and their annoying ways

Which draw us out of selves – and into sun.

And if we see this, in the truest light,

We will not turn away, although our souls

May need a refuge, finding deep delight

In quietness – as in a silent night.

  

How much of this, my sister had surmised,

How much she hadn’t, only she could tell,

Who told me, Boston seemed a rung of hell.

I’m sure Bostonians might, at this, object.

And one experience, on a winter’s eve,

Should not be used to beat a city down.

But this I know, what Monua then perceived,

Had left its scar.  I heard – and I believed.

For Boston’s just a marker.  What she saw,

We all might see in cities ‘round the world.

Wherever men and women take to heart

The dictates of the demon-engine, there

We find the blight that rots us from within.

It leaves us sickened, faces turned to masks,

As each is writhing in what Dante scribed –

A place infernal, though we walk on earth.

Babui (Arjun) Janah

2006 June 4^th, Sun.
Berkeley, California
(revised & with the last two stanzas added,
2013 Dec. 19^th, Thu., Brooklyn, New York)
 In Memoriam
Monua Janah
1959 – 2004
   

Note on pronunciation:  My late sister’s name, Monua, has, in Bangla (Bengali), three smoothly joined and almost evenly stressed syllables, Mo-nu-a, with the three vowels being as in English “gold” (but shorter), “put” (but slightly longer) and “arm” (but shorter).

The first vowel gets, usually, just a slight emphasis – through a bit more of duration and loudness.  Since the last two vowels form a smooth diphthong, her name might also be thought of as having just two syllables, Mo-nua, with the “u” being, however, a distinct short “u”, (as in “put”) not a “w”.