Sense—and Sense

  
Sense—and Sense
 
The thoughts that clamor in our heads can drown
The softer senses that are needed still.
So also, surges of emotions blind
Our inner eyes to things that each should see.
 
And so we’re snared in tangles, or replace
The fuller views, with all their hues and shades,
Their whole perspectives, and their small details,
With caricature-sketches—mere cartoons.
 
These simplify our views but may obscure
The wider, deeper, sharper sight we need 
To judge and act with fuller knowledge—skew 
The balanced wisdom that we truly need.
 
They prejudice and blind us so we lose
Our empathy and sense of justice—guides
That steer our thoughts and words and deeds.
 
And so we’re blinded, shorn of sense and heart,
Let go of ethics, joy in cruelties…
 
****** 
 
We each are mortal and are limited
But can, by seeing, listening, absorb
The views of others—part of what they’ve seen—
And so expand and deepen how we see
The world we share—the world we all are in.
 
A while ago, we humans learned to write
And read—and this can surely serve us still.
So books can speak across the centuries, 
As letters bring us words from distant zones. 
 
And yet, increasingly, both diligence
And length are spurned. Impatience rules our lives,
And this again can lead to negligence.
 
The broader strokes can often brush away
The filigree that’s there in everything.
 
****** 
 
Even in one’s self, those voices stir
That often can’t be heard above the din.
So new distractions, loud, insistent, drown,
With noise, the softs that rise and die within.
 
And rage and fear arrive, like tides or storms,
To sweep away all else. We speak and act,
Too often rashly, causing hurt, regret, 
Or else retreat. We’re shorn of sense—and sense.
 
******
 
The first? Sensation, which is followed by
Perception and what follows after it—
The wisdom, balanced, based on sanity—
That speaks to us when souls are calm within.
 
This makes us pause to try to understand
And then to speak or act with sense, and not
The haste that comes with unconsidered heat.
 
And that’s the second “sense” we also need
To use the welter of our senses’ feeds
And all the thoughts and feelings that compete,
In ways not ruled by either fear or rage
Or mere disgust or jaded apathy.
 
We need the care and courage, born of sight,
That sees confusion, mixed with clarity, 
And quietly seeks to sift then each from each.
 
****** 
 
Within this world of pleasure twinned with pain,
With joy and sorrow mixed in turbulence,
So many labor long and wearily,
As others wreak their endless ravages.
 
We wend our ways through this—and hopefully,
We dwell at times in quiet sanity 
That gives us strength—and serves as sustenance.
 
Our mornings and our evenings come and go.
Our days and nights and seasons cycle through.
And some of us, at times, are blessed with peace—
The grace that comes to us with quietude. 
  
2025 Sep 20 Sat
Berkeley, California
  

Release

Release

We try to judge the act and not the person,

And this can serve us well through all our years,

But often we may struggle all alone,

And then perhaps could shed our bitter tears,

Had we not seen how others suffered more 

And so had gained perspective—being blessed

By traces left of humor that could see

The comedy of this, the “tragic self”—

And so could pause from misery to smile

And even laugh out loud at such a plight—

And so, amidst what seemed as darkness, find

The fortitude to still perceive the light.

****** 

We carry burdens, dense, of varied  weight, 

Of all the wrongs we’ve borne. And every grudge

Can add to these, until we let them fall

And so are freed to let the heavens judge

Our acts and those of others, breathing free

To hark to conscience, heed to duties left—

To breathe in peace and even take delight

In pleasures small and what we still have left.

This needs some practice, letting grasping go

Of fears, desires, attachments, rages—all

The things that snare us, all the chains we’ve wrought—

To find release from years in captive thrall.

2025, April 15th, Tue

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
  

Saint or Sinner?

Saint or Sinner?

Show us a sinner or show us a saint,
And we’ll find, in the first one, an aspect of worth,
And then, in the second, as surely, a taint—
For such are the natures of beings on Earth.

Let's open the corrals we use to constrain
The field of our fellows to friends and to foes,
And know—that these boxes we try to maintain
May often be nests that can nurture our woes.

Let's value a friendship, beware of a foe,
Yet open a passage where beings may flow,
For such are their natures, not solid, but more
Of a fluid—at times, like the breezes that blow.

So is he a “saint” or is he a “sinner”?
Or if we're like Trump, and addicted to sin,
Then is he a “loser” or is he a “winner”?
Could sinners be saints, just as losers might win?

And is she a blessing or is she a pain,
Or is she a bit of them both?  It is time
That we leave you to think, as we end this refrain
That we've couched, for your pleasure, in meter and rhyme.

2017 September 25th Mon.
(2nd-to-last stanza and minor edits added October 1st, Sun.)

The First of May

 
The First of May
   
The first of May.  The city streets at dusk.
A bench to sit on in the cobbled park.
The workweek ended—time to sit and breathe—
and yet a tension, still, that will not leave—
a strange foreboding in this worker’s heart.

A calm, a pause, between the day and night,
between the workweek and the weekend and
between the seasons. Yet—above—a storm.

The trees, with all their springtime twigs out-thrust
towards the storm-clouds swirling in the sky.
An eerie light on high—and in the streets
the traffic moves in strangely silent streams.

******
 
A chill that’s more like March than early May.
The muted voices of the passersby.
And as I sit, a question comes to mind.
Is this the time for me to exit right?
 
I mull upon this question for a while.
The answer comes—  
a student’s father’s dead.

It isn't time for me to leave—not yet.

******
 
I’ll grade my papers and, when Monday’s here,
I’ll go to work and speak to him a bit
and then decide if I should quit my job
and try to start on all I've left undone—
or linger still and do the other things
I still must do before I have to leave.

But then—I know such tidiness is rare.
We each must bear the mess that life can be,
with times like this to quietly reflect—
and then be grateful for that precious gift.

******

The sky has cleared.  There’s Jupiter above.
The south is darkened still with clouds.
The storm has come and gone—but left no rain,
as sometimes happens in a warmer zone.

It’s Friday evening.  Weekend—filled with work.
But that’s a blessing.  Opalescent sky—
the trees in silhouette.  The traffic lights,
whose silent signals are the city's pulse.

A bit of peace.  And yet, across the world
and even here—the madness and the wars.
 
The madness in the job is part of this.
 
Who knows what harsher horrors May and June
will bring?

Let morbid thoughts subside.  Of seasons, sing.
For life will pass and death will come in time.
Till then, we live and do what needs be done.
A bit of laughter and a bit of fun—
and that’s enough.

******
 
My student—fatherless
and far from where he came from—alien,
within a city where he walks alone,
will face yet more of sorrow and of grief.

The mortal lot.

A gesture or a look, a word or two—
a little notice—might give some relief.

It’s time to rise and tote my papers home.

******

The first of May.
A day for workers—yet a day for work.
 
2015 May 1st Fri 8:30 pm
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York
    

Markings on the Moon

   
Markings on the Moon
  
I walked the lonely city streets tonight,
when all was quiet, past the midnight hour,
and pausing, when the moonlight hit my eye,
I saw, upon the shining, gibbous moon,
the markings men have wondered at from yore.
 
If there were ever life upon the moon,
a sentient thing, on looking up, could then
have seen the pendant Earth, with oceans blue,
and noting then the whites and shades of brown,
it surely would have stopped and wondered too.
 
2014 August 9th, Sat. 1:43 a.m.
Brooklyn, New York
  

Relativity – II (Jo`e Bangla)

  
Relativity – II (Jo`e Bangla)
 
When lapsing into pity for myself,
Which seems to happen frequently of late,
I remember those I saw, when young –
The pavement-dwellers on my city’s streets.

Remembering this, and father’s photographs
Of famines, riots, men and women shot
When Britain ruled and Indian troops used guns
Against their own, I shake my silly head.

And then, I can’t feel sorry any more
For one like me, who’s working at a job
And so gets paid and so can pay the rent,
And even finds the time to type out verse.

And I remember how I once was stuck
In exile from this land and from my own.
And so, I'm glad that I’ve a place to live,
Without the fear of knocking at the door.

And I remember too – the ones who'd fled,
The stricken eyes of those who’d walked for days,
Whose feet had sores with pus I could not treat...
“Joy Bangla!” was the cry they uttered then.                \1

And then, although I’ve had my share of knocks,
I stir myself to do the job at hand.
And though there’s much that I perforce neglect,
I still can wring my satisfactions small.

The world is full of madness.  Who escapes?
The lots of some are endless misery.
But yet we live, and do what we can do,
So when it’s time, we’ll leave with less regret.

The victories we eke are transient,
And one by one, come more and more defeats.
But still, there's true and false, and right and wrong.
And still there's love – and duty's quiet call.

And so, at end, the hardest thing to bear
Is when there's conflict in our consciences.
But even this, the war within, we learn
To live with, as the outer wars proceed.

2014 March 13, Thu.
Brooklyn, New York
   
1. "Victory to Bengal!"
-------------------------------------------
 
See also:  Relativity
http://thedailypoet.blogspot.com/2014/01/relativity.html 
       

Why Think Ahead?

Why Think Ahead?
    
Now Sunday ends.  From mostly sleeping through it,
I find that nothing I had planned is done.
So I could stay up late and try to do it,
Or I could sleep.  Now which would be more fun?

If only I had made my life’s decisions
On this criterion, I might happier be.
But other things, like duty, diligence
Had interfered – as I can finally see.

And so, with insight, I will now retire
And try to sleep.  My lids are drooping low.
And if I can’t?  Well then, I’ll lie awake.
Why think ahead?  For soon enough, I’ll know.

If only I had lived my life this way,
Not thinking of the morrow, till tomorrow,
My life and that of others might have had
Some more of joy – and less, perhaps, of sorrow.
   
2014 January 20th, Mon., 12:56 am
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York   
   

Who Profits?

             
Who Profits?
        
In the mathematics, that we learned at school,
We could be sure that two-plus-two was four,
And when we measured, in the physics lab,
The strength of “g”, we found that it was so.

But in our lives, and even more in what
We read and hear – and even watch on-screen,
There seems far less of certainty.  Indeed,
We couple true and false in ways obscene.

How simple is the sly and easy lie,
How facile are the ones that lead to war!
Our falsehoods, oft repeated, stand as truth.
Homo mendax – that is who we are.

So how can we then disentangle facts
From all the myths in which they tangled lie?
I do not know, but this I surely do –
For every falsehood, there's a reason why.

And for the sake of brevity, let's say,
Before believing what we haven't seen,
“Who profits from this 'fact' and our belief?”
Let's ask – so we're not led to where we've been.

But should we then be cynics in all things?
The things we see for selves, before our eyes,
We can believe, if we have eyes to see.
All else is suspect, often being lies.

But then, there's heart, which now is ridiculed.
And some have hardened theirs and some have not.
With senses, heart and logic we proceed.
For in the end, that's all that we have got.

But as we learn yet more disturbing facts,
For which we often have no strength or time,
The picture takes a shape we draw ourselves,
That's closer to the truth than all my rhyme.

2013 December 15th, Sun.
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn
  

Encounter–II--A Little Bit of Rice

                                
Encounter – II  /  A Little Bit of Rice
                               
I was wandering in the country, when I met an aged man.
And it seemed that he was starving, so I offered him some rice.
He sat down then to eat it, and he ate it very slowly.
Each grain of rice, he savored, as he put it in his mouth.

I watched him as he sat there, but I felt that I would cry,
So I moved away and circled – and when I had returned,
I saw that he had eaten only part of what I'd given,
Which itself was but a smidgen, as I hadn't much myself.

And I saw that he was wrapping, in a leaf, what he had left.
So I asked him, was he saving it for eating later or
Was there someone, who was waiting, whom he'd saved a portion for.

But he only smiled and nodded, for his language wasn't mine,
And I watched him as he hobbled down a dusty country path.

I was hungry, so I settled down and ate my rice myself,
With a bit of precious lentils that I'd salted – and a pickle.

And I felt that I was guilty as I'd only given rice
To that aged man who seemed not to have eaten for a while.
And as I sat there eating, I remembered still his smile.

I sipped then on the water, that I'd carried in a bottle,
And I rose and walked to westwards, towards a village that I knew.
And I saw the sun was sinking – and my heart was sinking too.
For the stores I had were dwindling – and my stores by then were few.

But that aged man was walking, as I walked, within my mind.
And I saw that he was smiling, for that little bit of rice.

2013 November 4th, Mon.
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn
 
Some Earlier Encounters

The Teacher -- 2013 Sep

Encounter -- 2013 July

Strange Encounter -- II -- 2011 Nov

The Watcher -- 2006 Sep

Strange Encounter -- 2006 April
   
       

A Woman, Young -- Part II

A Woman, Young -- Part II

A memory remains
of California sun
and that brief incident,
that crossing of the paths
between that woman and
myself --
the ones we were
that morning,
long ago.

Unaccustomed as I was, to women, young,
who'd follow me and offer me a ride --
and insist on it, a stranger though I was ---
I did not know then what to do
except to walk away ---
perhaps especially as she
was beautiful,
attractive and vivacious,
and, at least with me, that day,
flirtatious in a friendly sort of way,
with a sunny innocence that lit her eyes
and a smile that played, like sunshine, on her face.

I did not know then how I should react.
And so, I stumbled and I walked away.

It might have been for the best.

I wonder, still,
how it just might have been
if only I were not
the solemn one that I
felt bound to be
that sunlit day.

I wonder too, just who she was,
that woman, young,
whose form had been revealed to me,
in wondrous nudity,
in morning's light --
that woman who
had followed me --
perhaps because our eyes had met
and she had sensed, as I had done,
a history, unreachable --
a musk
without a name --
and perhaps
a destiny
that turned out
not to be...

I wonder who she was,
that woman, young,
whom I remembered suddenly
this evening, thirty years
and very far away --
I wonder who she was --
and is --
that woman, now perhaps
no longer young...

I did not ask her name,
nor offer mine,
and nor did she,
despite her friendliness...

I wish her well,
and I also wish that I could say,
"I'm sorry that I was
a dolt that day."

2013  October 31, Thu.
Brooklyn
  
A Woman, Young -- Part I 

http://thedailypoet.blogspot.com/2013/10/a-woman-young.html 
 

The Changing Moon

   
The Changing Moon
   
The moon has phases, which we see.
It changes everyday.
Its shapes have names.  Its size, in flux,
Has monthly wax and wane.

And yet, it is the selfsame moon
That hides itself when new,
That starts and ends as sliver and
Is shining round when full.

And there are other changes, which
The one who looks may notice.
And some are seen by all – and some
Are seen by the devoted.

Who sees a moon that's rising, sees
Another moon than he,
Who sees his shadow walk with him
Upon a moonlit way.

*******
      
The moon, at rise and set, appears
A giant, warmly hued.
The moon at zenith bathes the Earth
In coolest silver flow.

It changes so on its daily round,
And with the seasons too.
For there is still a moon of May
And that of late November.

The moon of autumn, winter, spring
And summer – they're the same.
Yet each has qualities that tell
Of season, day and hour.

The moon of autumn seems to brood,
The winter moon is sharp.
The moon of spring delights the heart
And summer's moon says, “Love.”

******
     
The sun's too bright to look upon,
Except at rise and set.
We look upon the changing moon
With wonder, as a friend.

For it can change or set our moods,
Bring calm to troubled minds...
And there will be a lovers' moon,
When you and I are gone...

For though the moon appears to change,
It still remains the same.
The ancients saw the moon we see,
And so will those unborn.

In times of peace, in times of war,
In times of hope, despair,
In loneliness, at birth and death,
That changing moon is there.

2013 October 18th Fri. evening
(some stanzas added 19th morning)
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn
  

Rites of Passage / Vespertinal

  
Rites of Passage / Vespertinal
  
The seven-horse chariot's done its daily beat; 
And over there, where sky and earth commune,
The evening star sheds limpid, icy fire 
Against a cyclorama amber-blue.
  
A breeze from west, gently insistent, blows 
Streamers of sand off crests of velvet dunes, 
Whispering reminder, prickly on the soul: 
The intimation of a threshold passed.

Through dim and misty distances in time
Loom memories of dreams that went unlived; 
Of songs unsung, of feelings unrevealed; 
Of deeds not done, of promises unkept; 

Of cheery smiles received and not returned; 
Of leaps of faith across uncharted streams 
Landing in quicksand, and being helped from there 
By waiting arms that never stayed for thanks.

And as the canvas is daubed more and more, 
The tints turn muddy, chiaroscuro fades 
To shades of grey, darkly illumined from 
The tunnel's end, a weary age away.

Threescore-and-ten was granted, half is spent. 
What rests is but a half-life of decay, 
Of keeping count of acts, noble and base, 
At every rite of passage on the way. 

Vivek  Khadpekar 
Osian, Thar Desert, Rajasthan
and Benares (Varanasi)
India, 1988/89 
 
By the same author:  Midnight

Transience – II

 
Transience – II                                                       \1
        
We cling to life and to possessions, yet
We come with nothing and we go with naught.
The things we think we have are passing through
And so are we – for dust returns to dust.

The things we live for, all the things we do,
May blossom for a little while or not.
But like the blooms that toss upon the breeze,
They'll fade away in time and then be lost.

And all our pride, resentments, anger are
Like storms that roil the surface of a sea,
With waves that wreak their vengeance and are gone.
Let love, compassion work their ways in calm,

For kinder thoughts and words and actions may
Have less of force and yet have more of depth.
Why add to all the suffering, yet more?
Let our remembrance be a brighter one.

We are but mortals and we all are weak,
And some are blinded more than others are.
Forgive the ones who seem to wrong you, so
You may, in turn, from some, forgiveness seek.

The ones that rouse our anger, feel our wrath,
Tomorrow may be gone, like yesterday.
That turning of the cheek, we'll rarely rue,
But should we leave with debts of wronging due?

****** 
             
And even those we love and those, who give
Us of their love, are ripples on the lake.
So who can stop them, as they go their way
And leave us with our grief and memories?

So while they live, let's give to those, who're dear,
And even to the ones we might neglect,
Their due, before they leave or we depart,
Of our attention and our care, respect.

So many live today within a rush,
With constant stress and pressure from around,
And so forgetting, as the madness mounts,
What sanity and life are all about.

We came from naught and will, to nothing, go.
Let's pause from rushing, for a little while,
And ponder this and see absurdity,
So we can savor then a laugh or smile.

To laugh at others, all of us can do.
To laugh at self is truly freedom true.
If you feel sorry for your present state,
Then shed a tear for those less fortunate.

******
            
And if we're overcome or paralyzed,
Let's take a breath and do what needs be done.
Our lives are passing and our time is brief,
And yet there's time for life and for belief.

There's true and false and even right and wrong.
And though we've no reward on heaven, earth,
We still can will to do what's honest, right,
And till the end, for love and reason, fight.

However much the woe, there still is joy,               \2
And in our laughter, we can hear the grief.
This world will be, when you and I are gone.
Let's leave the self awhile, to breathe and be.

Like waves at sea and like the clouds above,
Are you and I, and all the changing world.
The hills are waving in their rhythms slow,
The empires rise and then, in time, they go...

Our days are numbered and our nights are few.
As night and day are mortal, so are we.
For all that's born lives out its life and dies,
From stars to ants, including you and me...

Behold, at night, the starry sky and see
The galaxies that gyre like whirlpools 'round.
We are no more than motes on motes and yet
We have this life to live and not regret.

2013 August 11th, Sun. & 12th, Mon.
Brooklyn, New York  
    
Notes:
  
1.  Please see also:  Transience
   
2.  This stanza was probably influenced by the quote from William
Blake that my friend Amitabha Sen sent me from Chicago.  This
was in response to my last sending, Nature's Nature:
   
Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know
Through the world we safely go.
Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine;
Under every grief and pine
Runs a joy with silken twine.

-- William Blake
   
See http://www.bartleby.com/41/356.html
to get Blake's poem, Auguries of Innocence.

Then (from Edit-->Find) look for:

man was made for joy and woe

The first 4 lines of that poem, by the way,
may be among the most remarkable in the
English language.  Do take a look.  They may
be very familiar to some of you.  But, if you
have the patience, it may be worth your while
to read Blake's long poem in its entirety.

-- Babui / Arjun