Tides and Seasons

   

  

Tides and Seasons 

The seasons come; the seasons go in turn,

As Autumn, Winter, Spring, and Summer dance

As they had done, with other seasons too,

In days gone by, preceding me and you.

  

How many worlds within this universe!

How many universes come and gone! 

How many beings, born to live and die,

With no one knowing whence or whither, why!

  

The seasons of our lives can last a while

Or swiftly pass. We’re left with memories

Of faces, scenes, and cares and passions past

That stay with us as long as breathings last.

  

The Ocean’s tides and those that rise and ebb,

Within us each and also all around,

Have varied strengths and varied rhythms, yet

They harmonize in ways that we forget.

   

The balances that pulse and oscillate

Around the means are what our beings sense

And so we dance with these—the seasons, tides

That bring us life with all its turning rides.

   

2026 February 24th, Tue.

Berkeley, California

  

All is Naught--and Naught is All

I am not sure what this signifies, if anything. It came to me somehow and so I have written it down.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

All is Naught—and Naught is All
 
What cleaves the self from what it sees as other
And separates, in time, the child and mother?
What grace might free us from the trap we’re in
That makes the brother turn against the brother?
 
I asked these questions, turning towards that sky
That sees us being born and sees us die.
I asked these questions. All I got was naught—
No answer as to what—or how—or why.
 
And left with this, as all who ask might be,
I asked myself—and then began to see
What words or sight or thoughts cannot convey—
The naught that births the timeless, boundless sea.
 
******
 
I pondered this, perplexed, and wondered why
I’d sensed this not by grace of sea or sky,

But from within my bounded self—and why
I should not view it as an useless lie.
 
And so I sank within again and found
An emptiness devoid of light and sound
That yet was filled with all the blazing stars,
With silence bearing still a sense profound.
 
“Within the naught, there does reside the all—
And so the all is nothing but the naught.
And this, when realized in depth, would be
The sum and essence of the wisdom taught
By pointing towards what can’t be said or thought—
The door to sight beyond what eyes can see
Or ears can hear. The fog in which we’re caught,
When cleared, reveals the link of naught to all.”
 
2023 October 23, Mon.
Berkeley, California
 

Not in Substance or in Form

Not in Substance or in Form

When you and I have vanished and those we knew are gone,
there still will be the sunrise, the morning and the noon,
and the afternoon will follow and the stars emerge at dusk.
The moon will have its phases and the planets wend their ways,
and the seasons too will cycle as this sphere goes ‘round its sun.
  
When the myths of men and women and the truths that they had gleaned
are lost and are forgotten, and our race is no more here,
the stars will still be burning in the vastness of the dark,
and the species will be rising and then ebbing like the waves
on the myriad specks that orbit in their spirals without end.

But our sun will wax in redness as the inner planets burn—
as those other suns before it and those other planets did.
And the thoughts that we were thinking and the feelings that we had—
and all that gave us meaning and the works on which we strove—
will they leave perhaps their traces? Not in substance or in form. 

2017 June 29th, Thu.
Brooklyn, New York
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Uniquely (among all my hundreds of posts on this blog) this post seems to have been duplicated. This might have occurred while I was trying to get each verse line to fit within one page line. I seem to have not quite succeeded here, where I have used the "Times New Roman" font, with the "small" font-size. 

But if you want each line to fit as it should, and have good eyesight, please see the duplicate of this post, where I have used the blog's default font, but with the "smallest" font-size. That is at:
 http://thedailypoet.blogspot.com/2017/06/not-in-substance-or-in-form.html 
  

Not in Substance or in Form (smalllest font)

  
For a larger font, please see the duplicate of this post, at: 
http://thedailypoet.blogspot.com/2017/06/not-in-substance-or-in-form_29.html 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
Not in Substance or in Form  (smallest font)

When you and I have vanished and those we knew are gone,
there still will be the sunrise, the morning and the noon,
and the afternoon will follow and the stars emerge at dusk.
The moon will have its phases and the planets wend their ways,
and the seasons too will cycle as this sphere goes ‘round its sun.

When the myths of men and women and the truths that they had gleaned
are lost and are forgotten, and our race is no more here,
the stars will still be burning in the vastness of the dark,
and the species will be rising and then ebbing like the waves
on the myriad specks that orbit in their spirals without end.

But our sun will wax in redness as the inner planets burn—
as those other suns before it and those other planets did.
And the thoughts that we were thinking and the feelings that we had—
and all that gave us meaning and the works on which we strove—
will they leave perhaps their traces?  Not in substance or in form.

2017 June 29th, Thu.
Brooklyn, New York
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Uniquely (among all my hundreds of posts on this blog) this post seems to have been duplicated. This might have occurred while I was trying to get each verse line to fit within one page line. I seem to have succeeded here, by using the default font, with the "smallest" font-size.

But if you want a slightly larger font, please see the duplicate of this post, where I have used the "Times New Roman" font in the "small" font-size. That is at: http://thedailypoet.blogspot.com/2017/06/not-in-substance-or-in-form_29.html 
  

The Pale Blue Dot

 
The Pale Blue Dot

https://www.facebook.com/arjun.janah/videos/10154567820250950/

What indeed is poetry?
I really wish I knew,
Although I spout again in verse
Which often seems to veer from terse.

And Riaz earlier was wise
In saying there's a difference--
For I can persevere in meters
Or echo rhymes, as poetry peters.

And as for science, what is it?
Our Trump would say, "A lot of s**t!"
Unless it adds in cash for him,
Who grabs at p******s at his whim.

And we might say, "What's wrong with money,
Or sipping on a bit of honey?"
But others then might counter, "Naught!
But yet there's more than can be bought."

What cash can come from Andromeda,
What pleasure from a comet's tail?
And yet we might be more bereft,
If Carl were mute before he left.

For though he spoke in measured prose,
It's poetry that Sagan wove.
As Saumen too has said, it's wonder
That gives, to poets’ words, their thunder.
 
2017 April 21, Fri.
Brooklyn, New York
   

Our Wisp of Verse

Our Wisp of Verse

The present moment—that is all we have.
And yet we have it not—it comes and goes,
As water, streaming, rises, ebbs and flows.
Can men possess the wind, contain the tide
Or claim, where those, whose lives have ended, hide?
 
From vastness, we are gathered for a while,
And back into the vast we each will go.
Oh friend of mine, that I have come to know,
How brief our tryst, before the winds disperse
Both you and I and this—our wisp of verse!

If there's a reason for existence, then
It can't be figured by our mortal wits.
We each are formed—and scattered back to bits
That merge with water, earth and endless sky,
Not ever knowing whence or whither, why.

I saw, upon the trackless ocean, this—
A leaf of autumn, bobbing on the seas
That troughed and crested, driven by the breeze.
Who knew, from where that withered leaf had blown—
Or where, its siblings that it once had known?

We build our villages and towns and roads
And so find comfort in our time on Earth.
But what's the road that sent us to our birth
And where's the village that awaits us when
We each are sent upon our way again?

Annihilation marks the end of life.
The spirit leaves the body, so it seems.
No magic words and no fantastic schemes
Can bring it back, for even just a while
To shed that tear or look and gently smile.

If only we could speak with those we loved
And hold them in our arms and cry and smile—
If only we were given just a while
To make amends, in speech and attitude,
And then let go, in peace and gratitude...

What vanity—those ends that we pursue
Beyond what's needed so we each survive.
And yet, what seeming comfort we derive
In hoping that our work was not in vain,
Although we lived and worked and died in pain.

So come, my friend, and walk with me a while.
Before we part, we each should laugh and cry
At this absurdity, so when we die
We might remember, as our souls disperse,
Our time together and our rhyming verse.

2016 December 4th, Mon. 1:11 am
Northwest Berkeley, California