Virtues-2022 October

 
Virtues (2022 October)
 
We rarely hear, in the media,
Or even homes or schools,
About the virtues. Those who dwell
On these are seen as fools.
 
And yet, throughout our history,
However torched with grief
From humans harming humans, these
Were part of our belief.
 
What substitutes for decency—
For being of help when needed,
For being honest, diligent,
Attentive, brave—and patient?
 
Knowledge helps—and ignorance
Impedes, but wisdom’s art
Consists of seeing deeper, through
the “sights” of mind and heart.
 
It does not matter “who” we are—
Our “races”, faiths or creeds—
The wealth we have or lack of it.
What matters are our deeds—
 
And also words—that issue from
The feeling and the thought.
Our words and deeds are shaped by these,
Informed by what we’re taught,
 
Combined with “instincts” that we have –
Capacities within—
That grow, as we discern and act,
And lead to “good” or “sin”.
 
******
 
Fear and anger, love and hate,
Fairness and compassion—
Hunger in its many forms,
And greed and lust and passion—
 
These rise from drives and feelings that
We all possess—and need.
But there’s a range and balance, which
We each should sense—and heed.
 
When anger lasts and turns to hate,
Or hunger turns to greed—
When fear becomes anxiety, then
It’s time to pause the “feed”.
 
Awareness of ourselves is what
Is often dulled, neglected.
What others “are” should also be
Discerned—and then respected.
 
And that is where a discipline,
That’s gentle, serves as well.
This helps to curb excesses, when
We’re deaf to the warning bell.
 
An infant throws its tantrums. So
It gets, perhaps, its way.
An older child should realize
That others too have say.
 
And here again, the virtues, which
Were listed at the start,
Can guide us in the words and deeds
That come from mind and heart.
 
2022 October 11, Tue.
Brooklyn, New York
 

Here and Now

 
Here and Now

There’s east and west and north and south
And then there’s where we are. 
From all of these, we each can learn—
From near as well as far.

To learn is good—but knowledge won’t
Replace our eyes and ears.
We need the open mind and heart,
Embracing smiles and tears.

******

The past is gone and won’t return. 
The future’s still not here.
And then there is this present time, 
In which we disappear.

For if we dwell within this now,
There is no you or I—
Nor other. There is only this—
This flow we can’t deny.

****** 

The past and future call. We hear—
Remaining, centered, still. 
In pleasure or in pain, we breathe— 
And drink, of now, our fill.

So also with the east and west—
And all the zones of mind.
It’s only here that we can be— 
And hell or heaven find.

2022 October 6th., Thu.
Brooklyn, New York

The Madness

The Madness

We humans think so highly of ourselves—
And yet we trap ourselves in madnesses 
Of various sorts—and some are recognized 
And others not—as each in turn is praised

And then reviled and cast aside—and then
Revived, in force, to blight our lives again. 
We recognize a body's illness, but 
Ignore or serve collective madnesses. 

****** 

The quest for money drives the world we’ve made.
It rules our lives and colors all we see.
Our minds are trained to function through its rules—
And those who can’t or won’t are seen as fools.

To question this pursuit is heresy.
Some shed religion, only to adopt
This faith in money. Mammon rules on high
And governs what we think and say and do.

****** 

And who can blame the ones who play the game
And find in wealth and all it yields no shame—
Or those, for whom the cash they slave to earn
Is what sustains their selves and those they love?

But could the rules and so the play be changed 
To ease the lives of humans under stress—
And save our species from the fate that we
Have sent so many others to, in haste?

****** 

The world of Nature isn’t filled, we see,
With love and peace alone; these do exist—
Along with predators that stalk their prey,
And parasites that feed upon their hosts.

We humans are a part of Nature, so
There is, in us, a mix of all these things.
We still have power, though, to bend our lives
Towards what is sane—or towards insanity.

****** 

Some say, “The world is what it was and is—
And always will be. Let it go its way
And mind your business. Tend to self and kin
Or find your peace by seeking what’s within.”

But others say “The tides that rage and flow
Are made by humans, who’ve been led astray.
Unless this madness ends—this wild stampede—
Our kind, like others, will be swept away.”

****** 

The ones who halt—or slow too much—within 
A charging crowd are trampled under foot—
Until awareness spreads and one by one
We slow the race and so the spreading blight.

I’ve found no answer to the issues raised,
Nor any means to ease the plight we’re in. 
I only ask that humans recognize
This illness grave—that blights the world we’re in.

2022 October 2nd, Sun.
Brooklyn, New York

On Schools and Fools-As Satan Sings

On Schools and Fools /
   As Satan Sings
 
There is no Satan, setting snares,
Or “down below, in hell”.
That Satan is among us, in
Our hearts, as we can tell,
Exploiting all our frailties
With stories he can sell.
 
******
 
We humans, we are clever! We
Aspire to be as gods.
And at my age, we celebrate
At beating, still, the odds,
As beatings harsh are handed out—
And often still with rods.
 
In churches, mosques and mandirs, humans  ¹
Offer gods their things
Of substance or of spirit, while
They dream of angels’ wings—
As Mammon smiles at balance sheets
And Satan softly sings—
 
And often not so quietly,
As planes and cannons roar
And beings burn and bombs explode,
With science turned to whore—
And we can hear then Satan's song
And know that there’ll be more.
 
****** 
 
It would be wrong to just pretend
There was once a golden age,
When virtue ruled us humans, who
Were then as kind and sage
As Buddhas. This was never so.
We had vice at every stage—
 
And some were strong and others weak.
The stronger ruled the others—
Even in the places where
We tended fathers, mothers
When these were old or ailing and
Hailed all as “sisters, brothers”.
 
So there was liberation too
When villages were left
For cities, where we learned the truths
Of which we’d been bereft.
In cities, cultures interact—
And schooling too has heft.
 
******
 
We go to school and there we learn
To read and write and add—
And these are surely needed for
The modern lass or lad,
But who will guide, within the home,
Their sense of good and bad?
 
It’s there within us, yet in some
Who’ve learned of “yours and mine”
And daily act upon that sense,
It slow to rise and shine.
They only think about themselves
And feel that this is fine.
 
We learn, from watching others, more
Then hearing what they say.
If parents both are working or
Are absent through the day,
Then who will children learn from, in
The matters crucial, pray?
 
******
 
The teacher comes, the teacher goes.
The period starts and ends—
The term or school-year too, in time,
And yet, the seer pretends
That this is all that children need—
To learn—and this, defends.
 
In modern times, alas, we see
That content too, is slighted.
“It’s process! That is all that counts.”
Has been the cry, benighted.
Yet content too must still be crammed
At a pace that leaves us blighted.
 
There is a place, of course, for school—
In Ranchi as in Rome—
As there’s a place for the Internet
That has shoved aside the tome.
But tell me, truly, can a school
Replace, in whole, a home?
 
******
 
“It takes a village”, it was said,
“To educate a child.”
In Africa—and everywhere—
This wisdom, deep yet mild,
Was practiced—yet, in later times,
It came to be reviled.
 
And why? Because the villages
Were emptied—and the towns
Were crowded full—and townsfolk saw
The villagers as clowns.
And soon enough, the parents yielded
Offspring to the crowns.
 
Crowns? The ones of empires—those
With thrones and then with banks.
So children line up now, at schools,
As soldiers do—and tanks—
In peace—that never lasts for long—
And war—with all our thanks!
 
******
 
For soldiers fight and die, so we
Can go to school and learn
Those useful things, so factories
And offices can turn
Out all the stuff and services—
As fields and forests burn.
 
But right and wrong? We hear of these
In speeches, not in schools.
They’re put to use by clever men—
And women—used as tools—
To make us work—and buy—and pay
Our taxes—since we’re fools.
 
So parents slave to pay the bills
Or even to survive,
With hours long and lethal stress
That jointly can deprive
Them each of sleep and peace of mind.
So how can children thrive?
 
******
 
Fools? Perhaps I’ve overstepped—
Or overstated things.
Our words can take us far away,
As phrases take on wings.
So cleverness can lead us all
To hell, as Satan sings.
 
We should not have the schools dictate,
To children, right and wrong.
It’s back within the village calm,
And not the city’s throng,
That we should seek the quiet that
Can stop the Satan-song.
 
But there isn’t land enough that’s left
To farm, for all of us—
And agribusiness feeds us all
And frees us from the fuss
And labor of the fields, so we
Advance—as humans must!
 
******
 
“Salute! Salute the flag”, we’re told,
“And sing the anthem loud!”
Oh nation great, of thee I sing
And it’s of thee I’m proud!
The “nation” now competes with “gods”
And draws the biggest crowd.
 
The strongman grins and shakes his fist.
He jabs, with force, the air.
He’s now the hero of the crowd.
For rants, he has a flair.
A demon has been found! The blame
Is shifted. There’s the snare.
 
We fall for it, because we’re fools,
Forgetting right and wrong.
So “history” is handled well
To please, again, the throng.
No deeper, please! Nor wider!
Let the Satan sing his song.
 
******
 
There is no Satan, setting snares,
Or “down below, in hell”.
That Satan is among us, in
Our hearts, as we can tell,
Exploiting all our frailties
With stories he can sell.
 
2022 September 27^th, Tue.
Brooklyn, New York
 
Notes
1.      mandir: Hindu temple
 

Past, Present and Future

 
Past, Present and Future
 
Without the memory of the past, we would
Be ignorant, without identity—
And might not then survive for very long.
 
Without anticipation, how could we
Prepare to deal with what might come our way?
Again, without this, we would perish soon.
 
But when the present is intruded on
By memories of things that now have passed,
This could then cloud our clarity of sight.
 
So also, when our worries grip our hearts,
We cannot savor then the present time.
A mind that’s crowded leaves no space for light.
 
Too often, we are prisoners of our past
And hostage to the future. Let us breathe,
Enjoying both the breathing in and out.
 
The disciplines of body and of mind,
When gently practiced, lead to habits sound
That then sustain us through our grief and stress.
 
And so, the present, with its challenges,
Can be the focus. Starting with the breath,
Awareness spreads and gives us clarity.
 
2022 September 13th, Tue.
Brooklyn, New York

T'akar Dho'nda-টাকার ধন্দা

 
টাকার ধন্দা
 
টাকা-পয়সা, আইন-কানুন, 
সংসার আর বাণিজ্যের জট—
আমার মাথায় ঢোঁকে নি আগে,
আজও ঢোঁকে না, ভাই।
 
খেটে রোজগার করেছি সদা।
নিই নি কখনো ধার।
খর্চে বা কিপ্টে হই নি আমি। *
যেটা পাই, সেটা খাই।
 
মেনেছি আইন। দিয়েছি ট্যাক্স,
ভাড়া, মাসিক মূল্য।
আয় যে শুধু চাকরির থেকে।
পুঁজিটা বাড়ে নি  তাই। 
 
টাকার ধন্দা বুঝি নি আমি। 
সঞ্চয় করি নি ধন।
তাইতো আজ, কড়ি বাজারে,
ধমকানিটা খাই।
 
বুড়ো বয়সে নড়েছে টনক।
টাকাকে নমাই রোজ।
গ্রাহ্য করে না আমাকে তাও।
সময় হয়েছে, যাই।
 
এমন ভেবে, আবার ভাবি— 
জীবন-মরণ নয়।
যতই টাকা কামাই, জমাই,
সব-ই শেষে ছাই।
 
বৃহস্পতিবার, ১ সেপ্টেম্বর, ২০২২ খ্রি. 
বার্ক্লি, ক্যলিফোর্নিয়া
 

* খর্চে [खोर्चे]: খরচে: spendthrift

   কিপ্টে: কিপটে: miser, scrooge

The Path Taken

 
The Path Taken
 
There's neither a heaven nor a hell that waits
As pat for virtue or as rod for vice.
Justice is not served within a life
Or afterward. Our hopes are often dashed 
And all our labors blindly set to naught.
 
And yet we strive for what we feel is best,
And yet we hope for justice for ourselves
And others. This gives meaning to our lives.
We walk upon the road and look ahead—
As otherwise we might as well be dead.
 
******
 
There’s light and darkness, coupled each to each.
There’s joy and sorrow, pleasure-pain, entwined.
There’s fear and anger, jousting with desire—
And love, compassion with their opposites.
There’s deep attention—and impatient haste.
 
So also: “good” and “evil”; fog and clarity;
Truth and falsehood—and what’s in-between;
The stress of conflict—and the grace of peace.
We walk within the pulsing and the breath—
The yang and yin of birthing, life and death.
 
*****
 
We humans often think that we’re unique—
Forgetting every species also is.
The times we’re in, despite the Internet,
Are full of things that stress and isolate
Us—each from each—or else distract and blind.
 
We walk alone and yet at times we find
A hand that reaches out to us to help
Or just to touch us, so we know that we
Are not alone—and share the sentient plight.
And when we do the same, we share the light.
 
2022 August 30^th, Tue.
Berkeley, California