Karma – Part II

   
Karma – Part II
   
If only we were free to live the life
that’s there to live, without the stress and strife
unneeded, wrought by humans wanting more,
we’d live in grace – and still in grace, we’d go.
  
From thought arises word, from thought comes deed.
Be mindful then, of stuff on which you feed.
There’s no accountant up there, keeping score,
but every action leads to actions more.

And actions, words, in turn, engender thoughts –
and so the spirals, built of endless naughts,
proceed.  So blessing and damnation flow,
as eons, lives and seasons come and go.
    
Our thoughts and words and actions make a nest
or make a snare, in which we’re caught or rest.
And when, around us, ignorance accrued
has built a prison, then we’re truly screwed…
   
There lived a trader once in Brooklyn, who
of much that’s done, around the planet, knew
to raise the shares – and work the fields of woe,
and yet, he daily took the train, to hoe.
   
But when, one day, he saw the plume that rose
from Mammon’s isle, to which the tribute flows,
he murmured, thinking back to profits’ boost,
“Alas, the birds are coming home to roost.”
   
“Alas – and yet, at last.” he stood and said,
As karma did its work of darkness dread.
He then resolved to leave his woeful toil
and sow instead the light, in blighted soil.
   
And so, he turned to teaching children then
and found in this, awhile, a bit of zen,
until he saw that there was nowhere left
that wasn’t, of what’s sacred, quite bereft.
   
He could not raise his hands to a god and cry,
“Not even here!  Oh tell me – why, oh why?”
He thought of all that he had come to know –
and then decided it was time to go.
   
He walked that evening to the river wide
and stood in darkness by the current’s side.
He almost dove, but then he heard a voice.
“There's kindness still.  Remember – and rejoice.”
   
2014 November 22nd, Sat.
Brooklyn, New York
  
Karma--Part I
  
For a prose preface to Karma--Part II, please see Thanksgiving Thoughts -- On Turkeys, Teachers, Soldiers and Conscience.