Experience

Experience

There was little to know or to understand,
As I stood where the ocean meets the land.
I could see, by the light that was ebbing fast,
The sea and the clouds of the storm that passed.
I could feel the wind and the drops of rain.
I could hear the waves as they crashed again.
I could smell the scents in the breeze that blew.
And there, for that time, that was all I knew.

2018 July 22nd, Sun.
Brooklyn, New York

Wisdom-II

Wisdom-II 

When I was young, l always yearned
For knowledge.  Now I understand
That knowledge, needed though it is,
Needs wisdom as its guiding hand.

Around us, we can plainly see
That knowledge is a needed tool.
And yet, what use is knowledge when
It’s used in service to a fool?

And even if our bosses had
The knowledge that they often lack,
Without the needed wisdom, they
Can act in ways that set us back.

If wealth and power are the aims
Of those who buy the knowledge needed,
Then wars and famines are their games,
As those who’re dying go unheeded.

Our primal goals are always set
By instincts and by feelings, so
Our knowledge and our logic then
Can merely tell us how to go.

But where and why?  Such questions need
Some wisdom and humility.
If hubris and expedience reign,
The harvest is futility.

There is a wisdom of the heart—
An organ that is in the mind—
That balances what’s in the head
And steers us towards being kind.

Is wisdom knowledge in gestalt?
That could be so.  It cannot be
Divided into parts, no more
Than that which tethers you to me.

There are more things, as Shakespeare wrote,
Than in our neat philosophies.
The mess that can’t be analyzed
Is life itself, not just disease.

Get rid of it, and life will end.
Analysis has a rightful place,
But when we love, we do not wait
To analyze the heart or face.

There is a balance that is sensed
Between our logic and our heart.
And that’s a thing that can’t be taught
As science.  It’s a deeper art.

To err is being.  Our ideal
Might be a thing that does not err.
But such a thing cannot create.
And that’s a theorem I infer.

2018 July 19th, Thu.
Brooklyn, New York
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Related:
https://thedailypoet.blogspot.com/2018/04/for-me-and-you.html

https://thedailypoet.blogspot.com/2015/11/ignorance.html

When Insight Is Not in Sight

When Insight Is Not in Sight

When old ambitions all are shed and newer ones not grown,
We then are naked and exposed, with each pretension known.
And then, in painful clarity, we might perceive the ground
In which we each are rooted, till we cease to be around.

We still can savor pleasures and our satisfactions small,
Enduring pains and those frustrations that afflict us all.
Our sorrows bring humility and also give us depth,
And so, to these, as to our joys, we all remain in debt.

With all the past departed and the future yet to come,
This moment of experience and of action is the sum
Of all that we can live in—or can alter just a bit.
So even for ambition, the realm must be it.

The air that’s breathed is taken in and then it is released,
And all in a continuous stream, whose flow has never ceased,
Except when we have held the breath—and only for a while.
Let’s dwell within this stream—whose flow is cause enough to smile.

The old has died, the new is born—and yet it is the same.
The revolutions come and go, with never ending blame.
The empires rise, the empires fall, the spills are red and bright,
And then they clot and darken.  Day returns at end to night.

So should we hope for dawn or wait for dusk, forgetting this—
That deep within despair there dwells the silence that is bliss?
There is yin within the yang and there is yang within the yin,
And blessed grace is present in the savage heart of sin.

High upon the mountaintop or down along the beach,
The center of the universe is there beside us each.
It flutters by the butterfly, it wallows with the whale.
It dances in the ocean waves, it howls amidst the gale.

In the well within the galaxy, we find ourselves again,
And even in inversion, encounter pleasure-pain.
“So is there right and wrong?” we ask, “And is there truth and sense?”
As meaning is unwoven and then threaded back as tense.

Let’s shake our heads to clear them and then jointly mouth a mantra.
It doesn’t matter if it’s from the rishis or the tantra.
Let’s end with aoung and amen and a shantih that is triple,
Or mouth “Shalom, salaam.” and ask the goddess for her nipple.

2018 July 17th, Tue.
Brooklyn, New York

  

Does It Matter?

Does It Matter?

So does it matter, if a woman says
that she’s a Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jew
or Sikh, believing in a god or gods—
or Buddhist, Jain, for whom that matters not—
or is a follower of another creed
or disavows them all—or does not know?

And does it matter, if she says to you
that she’s a citizen of this or that—
or whether you perceive her lineage has
some more or less or none of that or this?

Or does it matter more, if through her acts
she shows that she has more of faith in you
than others might, and that she does not need
your passport shown to her and can perceive
your heart and mind, beyond your face and skin?

Does kindness have a country or a faith?
Is it confined within a species or a race?

Behold the being, of the man or dog,
in deeper essence than its outer form.
So many sorrows would be lessened, if
we found again this sight—that we have lost.

2018 July 8th, Sun.
Brooklyn, New York

  

Mugwump / In the Round

 
Mugwump / In the Round

A caricature captures part
Of truth—but only that.
But if I try to point this out,
I know you'll knock me flat.

Projections on a plane are fine,
But it isn’t really sound
To base your judgement on a view
That isn’t in the round.

There are more sides to an issue
Than those that you might see.
But if I try to say this,
Your monster, I will be.

It isn’t simple left and right.
There’s back and front as well,
And up and down—and often more
Degrees in which we dwell.

There is the present state, but then
There’s past and future too.
But if you're blind to both, why then
I’m just a dolt to you.

“You’ve got to choose a side!” you say,
And if I then decline,
You say that I’m a mugrump, who
Is lacking sense and spine.

It isn’t always black and white.
There also are the grays.
But when I whisper, “Look at these.”
You drown me with your nays.

There’s action needed, I agree.
And here’s what I suggest—
Let’s pause and think this through a bit,
So the outcome might be best.

“But who’s the good guy, who’s the bad?”
You ask. I scratch my head.
“There’s some of each in each.” But you
By then have shot me dead.

2018 July 7th, Sat.
Brooklyn, New York