Magic

 
Magic

We humans have abilities that awe
That when unhemmed by ethics and by law
Can lead to great calamities indeed. 
No magic can suffice, when few will heed

The voice of conscience and the pull of heart
As ears are deafened and we're pulled apart
By hatreds born of ignorance, instilled.
And so are prophesies, of hate, fulfilled.

****** 

So you and I and others have conversed
On how to end the wars with which we're cursed,
As more and more of science, art, and craft
Are used to wage what reason sees as daft—

What every heart and wakened conscience feels
Descends on people, trapped, and blindly steals 
From these, its victims, all, including life,
And so maintains the never-ending strife

That heaps, on generations, more of woe,
With senseless hatred turning friend to foe
As every act unjust and every blow
Begets its offspring, violent even more.  

******

So each of us has asked, in silence and
In speech, if anyone can understand
The sense behind this senselessness and show
A way by which to stop—or even slow—

The rush to our destruction: sober those
Whose hubris causes hearts and minds to close,
As blissful, willful ignorance parades
As truth—and blatant lies inform charades

Performed by rogues, as legislators cheer
The murderers of children, feel no fear
Of judgment, further seal their hearts
And practice, daily, more deceiving arts.

*********

If I could wave a "magic wand", I would—
And make those evils disappear, that should.
So bombs would all reverse, and bullets too—
And then we might be smiling, me and you—

As every missile sent and every shell
Would turn—and so return! It would be hell
For every bully, armed with war machines,
As "magic" gave the rest of us vaccines

Against their bribes, their threats, and all the fear
And horror. So these wars would disappear—
Of mass destruction, misery, and death—
Replaced perhaps by even worse! Regret

Could then descend on well-intentioned me
As all my "magic" turned out, not to be
The thing I'd hoped for. Squeezing evil, I,
Would see its means to lengthen and defy

My efforts to contain it. So elastic
This scourge of ours could be, that only drastic
Measures might suffice to bring to end
This evil that afflicts us all, my friend!

*********

And what could truly be more drastic than
To end our species, twinned as woman-man?

It might perhaps be time for diving deep
Within the wilds of psyche, through the sleep

In which we often spend our waking days,
With steps, as usual, on accustomed ways
Of habit born of training, so we see

What seers saw, informing you and me,

In wordless ways that cannot be expressed 
In verse or prose, of That which so impressed
The ones who saw that they awoke from sleep,
Enlightened—and connected with the Deep.

******

It’s only this, it seems, that could provide
The insight and connection that abide
And so inform the heart and mind to steer
Away from that which then is seen as clear. 

Is it “good and evil”? Simply, “right and wrong”?
Or was and is this cleavage, all along,
Misguided—clouded by a lack of sight
Of those connections needing pause—for light?

Our feelings, thoughts, and words and deeds, we see, 
Are ripples on the surface of a sea
That can be whipped by winds to stormy waves.
And yet, beneath, there’s peace—a strength that knaves

Cannot perturb. And some may call this “faith”
And others, “insight” or “connection”. Fate
Can put us each in peril and in stress, 
But only grace can change a “no” to “yes”,

Delivered from the heart—and not by force. 
So endless lies and wars may take their course
With cities laid to waste and no one spared.
The spirit lives—in those who saw—and cared. 

And this, dear friend, is all I have to say
To end the many words I’ve said today.
There is indeed a magic: it’s within;
It gives us strength to see—and not to sin.

2025 March 7, Fri.
Berkeley, California 

Beyond the Bounds of Tense

 
Beyond the Bounds of Tense

The present moment—that is all
We have—and yet it flies.
Beyond the here and now—the rest—
Has more of myth than truth.
We long in vain for permanence
And cling to our beliefs.
How precious are our memories,
And yet, they hide the root.

The Buddhas and the Jinas saw
The unity of being,
The suffering of sentients,
The traps that we are in.
The followers of Abraham,
Believing in their god,
Perceived the faults that plague our lives
And labeled these as “sin”.

And so have other streams of thought
And faith in what transcends
The lives we live that start and end
Been part of human sense,
Providing vision, solace, strength, 
Supporting us in grief,
And giving meaning to our lives
Beyond the bounds of tense.

But only when we sink within,
Let all possessions go,
Including love and life itself,
Can truth be truly seen—
Or so we're told by seers whom
We may, or not, believe.
Can each of us, a speck of dust,
Be one with truth, serene?

2024 March 3rd, Sunday
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
 

O Amar-ও আমার

 
ও আমার    

ও আমার দেশের মাটি, 
আমার মনে হয় 
সব দেশের-ই মাটি আমার, 
তবুও আমার নয়।

মাটি কারোর নয়।

ও আমার দেশের পানি, 
আমার মনে হয় 
সব দেশের-ই পানি আমার, 
যদিও আমার নয়।

পানি কারোর নয়। 

ও আমার দেশের হাওয়া, 
আমার মনে হয় 
সব দেশের-ই হাওয়া সবাইর,  
তবুও কারোর নয়। 

কিছুই কারোর নয়।

******

ও আমার ঘর-পরিবার, 
আমার মনে হয় 
সব পরিবার আমার, তবে 
কেউই আমার নয়।

মানুষ কারোর নয়। 

ও আমার জীবন স্মৃতি, 
আমার মনে হয় 
সব যুগের-ই স্মৃতি আমার, 
যদিও আমার নয়। 

স্মৃতি কারোর নয়।

ও আমার চিত্ত খানি, 
আমার মনে হয় 
সবার চিত্ত সবাইর,  তবে 
চিত্ত কারোর নয়। 

কিছুই কারোর নয়।

****** 

ও আমাদের জগৎ খানি, 
আমার মনে হয় 
সব কিছুই সবাইর, তবে 
কিছুই কারোর নয়।  

কিছুই কারোর নয়।

মঙ্গলবার, ৯ জুলাই, ২০১৯ খ্রি 
ব্রুক্লিন,  নিউ ইয়র্ক

Little Minds

Little Minds

Let us wander in the mountains,
Where the peaks are shining high
And the streams that run in valleys
Reflect the sun and sky.

Let us loiter by the ocean side
And look out to the sea,
Where the waves are racing landwards
To those like you and me.

The mountain does not know us.
The ocean heeds us not.
By neither are we needed—
Who will each be soon forgot.

With you and I forgotten
And all our strivings vain,
The peak will still be shining
And the wave will crash again.

******

And that is why it’s mindful
To climb up on the hill
And to walk beside the ocean,
So our little minds are still.

There’s a mind, that we are part of,
That in silence can be heard,
Though it does not know of language
And never speaks a word.
 
We can hear it if we listen
In the pauses of our thoughts,
As we learn to be accepting
That we’re each a string of naughts.

From nothing, we have risen—
And to nothing, we’ll subside.
We can joyfully embrace this—
Or, try, from this, to hide.

******

It is difficult for some of us,
Who strive to be the heroes,
To let go of their little minds
And realize they’re zeros.

So do not say these things to Trump
Or speak of this to Modi.
Make off, instead, with Donald’s pants—
Or run, with Naren’s dhoti.

They may try to hide their penises
And all the world may laugh—
And then perhaps they might perceive
Their little minds were chaff.

They might go then to the ocean
Or climb up on the hill—
And for once be no more needy,
As their little minds are still.

******

We once could see the starry sky
With its myriad specks of light.
We knew that we were nothing then
But now have lost that sight.

And so had kings and emperors
Who ruled in times now past.
Now even common folk forget
That none of us will last.

Let’s each release the little mind;
Breathe in, breathe out, be still—
So each can hear that ocean wave
And look out from that hill.

But being only mortals, we
May seek reminders, so
We need at times to see that sky
And hear that ocean roar.

2018 October 26th, Fri.
Brooklyn, New York 

  

High Upon the Mountains

     
High Upon the Mountains

 

Sun, Sky, Mountains and Lake
  

   
   
   


High upon the mountains
and on the alpine plain,
I wandered -- and in dreaming
I walk those ways again.
 
******
   
For here, in Mammon's city,
I travel to and fro,
but only to my workplace --
and rarely walking slow.
    
But if I live to see them,
I'll climb up mountain trails
and meet, on high, the eagle
that soars on feathered sails.
 
I'll watch, as dawn is painting
the eastern sky in light,
and though it's cold and windy,
I'll shiver in delight.
 
And walking on the plateau,
beside the lake of gold,
I'll find, perhaps, the spirit
that once I knew as mine.

Where lichen clings to boulders
And the wind that's freezing blows,
I'll walk, in liberation,
and vanish in the snows...
     
******
 
High upon the mountains
and on the alpine plain,
I wandered -- and in dreaming
I walk those ways again.
  
2014, December 9th, Tue.
(2nd-to-last stanza Dec. 13th, Sat.)
Brooklyn, New York
   

Maya – Illusion and Attachment

 
Maya – Illusion and Attachment
 
When praise comes by, then know that scorn is next.
When scorn arrives, do not, by that, be vexed.
As winds may blow from east and then from west,
So also, chasing worst, there comes the best.
 
But you could quibble, “No, it isn’t so.
Of woe and sorrow, I have more and more.”
You might be right.  The winds that blow, of chance,
Bring clouds and sun, within the cosmic dance.
 
And those, who’re lucky, they may bask in sun
For quite awhile, with share and more of fun,
While others may be drenched, through years and years,
And shiver as they shed, forlorn, their tears.
 
The Stoics, Buddhists, Jains, they all agree –
From woe undue, by this, we could be free –
On circumstance, put no or little weight –
Let praises go – and scorn, as so much freight.

It’s easier said than done, as all may know.
How many mortals, such forbearance show,
Both outwardly and also deep within,
When beaten down with woe and human sin?
 
How many more have puffed themselves with pride
And on achievements or on praises ride...
And when their small balloons, perchance, are burst,
How much, for what they’ve lost, they strive and thirst…
 
“Observe,” it’s said, “the world – without, within.
Observe the pleasure and the pain you’re in.
See fear arise – and anger, greed and lust,
And see these then subside, as all things must.
 
“Observe the breath, and let it gently flow.
As you exhale, so let your worries go –
Your fears and cravings are like ripples.  They
Will dance across the pond and fade away.”
 
And all of this is well and good.  And yet,
When caught in tempests strong – or in the net,
We struggle, struggle, even when we’re free,
For on this freedom we might not agree.
  
We cling to pleasure and we cling to pain.
And from this clinging, these arise again.
We crave the pleasure but we fear its loss.
We fear the pain – and in our angst, we toss.
 
The ones we love – and all we might have built,
We’ll leave them all – with peace of mind or guilt.
And some may leave before or after.  Naught
Remains – and yet we're still, in dreamings, caught.
 
There’s woe of circumstance and then there’s woe
That we create or worsen.  “Let that go.”
Is what the seers, in their wisdom, said.
Enough!  Let’s practice, now, the things we've read.
 
For one could write and write, and one could read –
But mount again upon the usual steed.
To practice what I teach, I now should knuckle
Down to do, and at my preaching chuckle.
 
Upon our mortal paths, we each must go,
But none of us is here alone in woe.
Compassion is a thing that all might feel –
But truly learn, when caught beneath the wheel.
 
2014  November 29th, Sat.
Brooklyn, New York
   

Broverbs – A Long Sentence

    
Broverbs – A Long Sentence
 
When we’re exhausted, though the work remains,
when we’ve labored, yet had punishment,
when all that we had built ignites and burns
and only ashes, smoldering, are left –
then those with faith in gods might duly turn
to them for consolation – while the ones
without such faith might see a deeper truth,
and realize that gain and loss – reward and
punishment – are waves upon the sea,
but he or she, who dives beneath, can find
an understanding and a vision deep
that’s often lost to those who ride the waves.
 
There’s zen, in which we see it all at once,
as still expounded by the Japanese,
and gyan, which can’t be gathered instantly,
as Indians have known for centuries,
and then there’s chan, which scholars learn about
when they've read what's written in Chinese –
yet strangely these are all the very same,
and even in the West, there’s knowledge and
there’s wisdom – which are linked, yet different.
 
On being served a sentence that is long,
we might not comprehend it fully yet,
but when we’ve worked that sentence partly through,
we then might start to sense its import more,
and finally, when we’ve labored to its end,
we might perceive, in whole, what’s truly meant –
or figure out the sentence made no sense,
and so regret the wasted time we spent.
 
So when you’re standing in the dock, beware –
there’s more to it than words the judge might speak,
yet bear in mind your future’s being parsed,
but what that sentence was, you’ll only know –
when, if fortunate, you’ve been released.
 
Our stanzas shorten as we reach our ends,
and yet enlightenment remains "afar",
for “seeing” might mean one of many things,
and so “extinguish” can, as well.
 
When flights of fancy and achievements end,
we’re back to where we started – there to dwell.
   
Our nibbana is here, not there, dear friend.
 
2014 July 30, Wed.
Brooklyn, New York