Yin and Yang-2024 July

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Yin and Yang (2024 July)
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The predator attacks the prey,
The parasite, the host—
And sea and land and air in turn
Convulse and take their tolls.
.
We humans feast on plants and beasts
And torture both of these.
The facts of life on Planet Earth
Were not designed to please.
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****** 
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And yet, there still is happiness
And pleasure mixed with pain,
And moments, both, of utter grief
And purest joy and bliss.
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So smiles and laughter alternate
With worries, frowns and tears;
So hunger stokes the appetite,
As distance strengthens bonds.
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******
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So sorrows deepen shallow minds, 
And pleasures lull awareness. 
Yet age may not let wisdom in,
And tyrants live the longest.
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We turn from things unpleasant, so
This lets those fester more.
There’s good and bad in all of us.
Cartoons precede the gore.
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****** 
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And yet there still are thoughtful men
And women in the world,
And children try to comfort those
That they perceive as hurt.
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And parents labor hard to feed
And rear their little broods,
And some who're aged or ailing still
Are cared for in their turns. 
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******
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The greens of trees appear serene;
The blues of skies delight.
The yellow blooms that dance in winds
Can turn our moods to bright.
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And see, amidst the massacres
And cruelties and woes,
The light of caring still persists
As courage fights its foes.
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****** 
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The yang within the yin—and deep
Within the yin, the yang.
So good and evil intertwine,
As light and darkness do.
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We can choose to turn to darkness
And to speed the spread of hate—
Or turn towards the light, before 
That turning comes too late.
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2024 July 17th, Wed.
Berkeley, California
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Between

 
Between

In wintry climes, we greet the sun with joy. 
In torrid ones, we welcome cloud and rain.
So also, what for some is pleasure might
For others be instead a source of pain.

******

Our memories link us to the vanished past.
Imagination helps us look ahead.
These things have surely been among our strengths,
But might at times be maladies instead.

So recollection may console, inform,
Anticipation clear the murk ahead,
But misery, when relived, prolongs the pain—
And anxious thoughts may fill our minds with dread.

To live within the present time is best,
As that is really all we have at hand. 
And yet, the future and the past are bridged
By this—the passing now upon the strand.

****** 

One by one, the stars appear within
The dark that spreads across the sky at night.
Between the cold and fire, we live and die—
Between the past and future, darkness, light.

2023 February 6th, Mon.
Berkeley, California

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
  

Layers

Layers

There are layers of the truth that lie
atop each other—or are intermixed.
And only if we start to dig, will we
discover this, and learn to know the lie
and recognize the half-truth that parades
as all of truth, which is obscured by it.

The truth could be unpleasant and upset
beliefs we’ve held as true for many years.
We might then have to modify our “truths”
to fit with what our digging has unearthed.
As long as others do the same, our own
experiences will also have their place.

We peel the onion and our tears begin.
There’s only so much that our eyes can take.
We wash the onion, cut it, cover up
the pieces, wash our eyes and then
begin to sauté onion, garlic, seeds…
We know our pain and labor lead to feasts.

2017 May 9th, Tue.
Brooklyn, New York
   

In Debt and in Surfeit

In Debt and in Surfeit

How troubled are our lives—and needlessly!
Our tribulations are engendered by
our own entrapment in the webs we weave.

How meager are the needs that must be met
so we may live, with freedom from distress.
The air we breathe is free—and so should be
the water that we drink.  We each can feast
a fortnight, just on rations carried on our backs.
We also need, in climates of extremes,
some shelter from the elements—and none
of us can live for long in icy cold,
without the clothes and heat that we require.
No primates ventured near the frozen realms,
except the ones who stitched and tended fires.

But that is all we really need—except
ourselves and those that give us company.
And in this last necessity, we find
a richness and a solace that had served
us well, providing culture, memory
that passed through generations—woven strands
that still endure—although we now retreat
to hermit cells, preferring to subsist
on those connections more in our control,
so keeping humans off at distances,
while drowning still in debt and in surfeit.

Till yesterday, we lived as foragers,
content and fully human—that, which we
are now no more, except in vestiges.

2017 May 5th, Fri, 6:10 pm
Milestone Park, Bensonhurst
Brooklyn, New York 
  

Ashes

Ashes

https://www.facebook.com/D.V.Ahluwalia/posts/913650452108809

The history of humans, friend,
Is a greatly tangled web.
We know about it next to naught,
Although we might pretend.

The Vedas only came to be
A moment back in time.
So Abraham was born in Ur
And Egypt rose sublime.

A hundred thousand years have passed,
Since humans left that land
In which we branched away from apes,
Or so we understand.

The Abrahamic faiths insist
The gods are none but one,
And all of Earth was made for Man,
By him who made the sun.

Our Aryas worshiped dewas, while
Ahuras ruled in Fars.
And so, "divine" and "devil"—these
Are siblings joined in farce.

Segregation, apartheid,
The lasting sin of varnas—
These all have failed to separate
Arjuna's kind from Karna's.

There is no superior race or god,
Or way of earning wealth,
And each such thought has wrought its dread,
In open or in stealth.

Each thing we make, which promises
To make our burdens light,
Is turned, by those who need their slaves,
To rob us of our sight.

So agriculture was and now
The labors hard of science.
So all is turned to ashes, friend,
On which we put reliance.

2017 April 24th, Mon.
Brooklyn, New York
    

Metaphysics

  
Metaphysics
 
Is the universe a solid, if we add to space the time?
Then all’s predestination.  Yes, my verses still have rhyme,
but more – because, in choosing, I really have no choice.
The word I use to rhyme with is chosen – and this voice
is saying what it’s saying, because the future’s known.
So none of us may claim to act with a will that is one’s own.
 
But if, beside the time, there is at least another thing
that varies, then each instant is a bird upon the wing.
The future of the universe can never be predicted,
for every tiny particle, even undetected,
can vary in the path it takes – and there’s no way to know.
The universe is fluid then, with myriad ways to flow.
 
And since, besides, each little flow can alter yet another,
and if, in probing how to flow, each flowing speaks to brother,
the universes that might rise affect then one another,
And so, of all complexities, we have, in this, the mother!
But since I play at poetry, and not in metaphysics,
it’s time to exit quietly and end these weird lyrics…
 
2014 December 21st, Sun. 11:08 am
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York