The Dreamers’ Lament

  
The Dreamers’ Lament
 
In childhood, we conceived our dreams;
in youth, we gave them birth.
And then we worked to rear them,
and saw them slowly grow.
And we had hoped to leave them strong,
before we left this Earth.
But sadly, they were ravaged, wrecked—
and now they are no more.
  
The things that we had dreamed of,
for which we worked and fought,
They still appear as worthwhile,
although our dreams have died,
as all the things, that we had built,
are rendered now as naught.
For every time we’d smiled and laughed,
we’ve also wept and cried.
 
The tasks, that we had set ourselves,
now must again be done.
But who will fight those battles, still,
that we had thought we’d won?
 
And who, we ask, will shoulder now
those burdens we had carried?
It seems that we have overstayed;
for far too long, we’ve tarried.
 
Our spans of course are limited,
yet long enough for woe.
We’ve had our sips of joy and now—
it’s time for us to go.
  
2017 March 31st, Fri
Brooklyn, New York
  

Mood Blue

 
Mood Blue

There are causes for our problems.
There are problems that we cause.
So the cycles, that we're caught in,
Keep us running, till we pause.

But to pause is to have trouble.
If we question, then we sink.
We are workers and consumers.
We pay taxes. Do we think?

There are channels for our thinking.
To these channels, we're confined.
We are penned and we're addicted.
We have little peace of mind.

******

We are flowing like the water.
We are blowing like the wind.
Yet we like to think we're solids.
That's the reason we have sinned.

Can we write upon the water?
Can we shape and hold the wind?
Did they ask themselves these questions—
Those in Egypt and in Sindh?

In old Mohenjo-daro,
Could they savor breaks from work?
Could the workers too, in Giza,
From the pharaoh's labors shirk?

We can see the woman running,
As she races to her train.
We can see the woman aging
From the stress and from the strain.

*****

And who is it who profits
From this racing, from this work?
If we knew, then we might stop it—
Give the finger to the jerk.

Is it God, up in his penthouse?
Is it Bloomberg, in the skies?
The widow holds the ashes.
The orphan sits and cries.

We have drugs and schools and markets.
We have courts and we have lawyers.
We have banks and corporations
And they need the skillful liars.

There's the blue that lights the heavens.
There's the blue that's in the soul.
There's a time for pause and sadness
That is needed to be whole.

2016 October 30, Sun.
Brooklyn, New York

https://www.facebook.com/riaz.quadir/posts/10155361065997678

https://www.facebook.com/riaz.quadir/posts/10155361065997678?comment_id=10155373674602678&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R%22%7D

  

For Every Love Denied

 
For Every Love Denied

   
I walk tonight and see a rising moon –
And so recall that Luna’s silver light
Lends magic to the lovers’ trystings, as
It casts that shadow that’s a lover’s plight.

The joys of love are celebrated, but
Its sorrows give, to songs of love, their depth.
When love’s accepted, we rejoice – and yet,
At being rejected, some are more adept.
 
But those, who’ve weathered their romances past,
And so, in many ways, can shield their hearts,
Too often may forget their innocence
Or when they first were pierced by Cupid’s darts.
 
For every love, sincere, that’s been denied,
For every lover scorned, abandoned, I
Now make lament.  The moon that rises, full,
I see reflected in a wistful eye.
 
For every yearning for fulfillment that
Depended on another’s whim or choice,
I whisper recognition.  To that pain
Of unfulfillment, I give plaintive voice.

Let every maid, from grave or ashes, rise,
Who died a spinster, from her love denied.
Let every youth revive, to walk again,
Who yearned and aged – and till his passing pined.
 
And let those beings walk beneath this moon
And be the lovers they were meant to be –
If only for an hour, in that sweet delight –
And then, fulfilled, forever cease to be…
 
I walk tonight, beneath a rising moon
And so recall the joy, frustration, pain
Of courtship and rejection.  So I mouth
These verses now – that might be mouthed again…
 
2015 January 10th, Sat.
Brooklyn, New York
  

A Gray Christmas

 
A Gray Christmas
 
Gray is the ocean, as Christmas arrives,
Gray as the clouds up above.
Bleak is the season.  It's windy and cold.
The trees by the roadside are bare.
 
But as evening approaches, the lights will come on – 
The lights that were made in the east. *
And carolers then might gather in halls
To sing of the child that was born.
 
The season is winter in parts to the north.
The hour of the solstice has passed.
The nights have been long and the days have been short –
But now they will lengthen, at last.
 
The year that has passed has been brutal and sad.
The woes and the deaths are in minds.
The year that's to come will be brighter, we hope,
So that more of the children can smile...

Gray is the ocean, as Christmas arrives,
Gray as the clouds in the sky.
Bleak is the winter.  And yet, in the gloom,
The hope for the light will not die.
 
2014 December 25th, Thu.
Brooklyn, New York
---------------------------------

* The second line in the second stanza originally read:
"The lights that in China were made."
I changed it to what it now is now, on 2016-12-29.
-- Arjun
  

My Excuse

  
My Excuse
  
I once was broken-hearted. My remnant mind was crazed,
I wrote for you then verses. In abysses, I gazed...
In gauging then the meter, I sensed a silent calm,
And so it was that rhyming became a soothing balm.

And though you're long departed, I'm writing verses still,
For though they're my addiction, they do, a vacuum, fill.
And when my heart is weary and mind has paid the cost,
They give me back my essence – the quiet I have lost.

I write in a tongue that's foreign and wonder what's the use.
But when the muse comes calling, I rarely can refuse.
I wish that you could hear me and know that I am well.
The things that I've been thinking, I wish that I could tell...

How many write such verses, how many hold them in?
How few are given chances, in this, our world of sin?
There's grief and there's forgiveness, there's love and there is pain...
I wish that I could hear you and be with you again.

My heart, it still is broken.  My mind, it still is crazed.
That I am living, working – at this, I'm quite amajed.
But still, I'm writing verses – and wondering what's the use.
And this, that I am writing, is merely my excuse. 
  
2014 July 7th, Mon, 8:57 pm
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York
     

Oh What to Do?

        
Oh What to Do?
     
I saw a tulip blooming red
Beside an apple tree.
For just a while, I thought that you
Were once again with me.

I saw a cloud go floating by
Upon a sea of blue.
For just a while, it seemed that I
Was once again with you.

I heard a bird that warbled loud
Upon a cherry tree.
For just a little while, I thought
You walked again with me.

I saw, through clouds, a shining moon
That slowly swam in view.
For just a little while, it seemed
I walked again with you.
 
It’s spring again, and days and nights
Are blessed by the season’s grace.
But everywhere, I hear your voice
And see again your face.

The scent of jasmine in the night,
Of roses in the day,
Bring back to mind those days and nights
Before you went away.

Oh what to do in springtime, when
The tulips are in bloom,
Except to shut myself away
Within a darkened room?

For if I venture out, I see
The sun and moon and sky.
And then I ask myself, why you
So early had to die…

Oh what to do in spring, I ask,
When you are all around,
And yet, although I call and seek,
Are nowhere to be found?

They think I am a madman, who
Is talking to the sky.
And all I seem to say is this –
Oh why, oh why, oh why?

2014 May 2nd, Fri.
Brooklyn, New York
     

The Ocean

    
The Ocean

Ocean at Night -- by Tim Johnson

  















                      
In the silence, I could hear
Softest sighings, drawing near,
Sighs that turned to sobs and then
Returned to sighing once again.

“Who is it that sobs and sighs?”
I asked, and heard then soft replies
That came like gentle waves ashore,
With lappings louder than before.

“I’m the one who grieves at night,
Who shuns the day, with all its light.
I’m the one that you can hear,
The sadness that the thoughtless fear.”

“What’s the reason that you sigh?
Tell me now the reason why.”
This I asked, and waited, yet
The answer, soft, I could not catch.

“Oh speak again, and loud and clear!
Your answer, I could barely hear.
Your words, like water poured on sand,
Are gone.  I could not understand.”

But all I heard again were cries
That turned to sobs and then to sighs.
The waves that lapped upon the shore
Were softer than the ones before.

I listened, as the silence grew.
And in the quiet then I knew
I’d heard the sound of faded grief,
From which there never is relief.
 
And if you listen, you might hear,
Sighing softly, drawing near,
The one who shuns the light of day
And takes your grief, with her, away.

And since so many others grieve,
And more and more, so I believe,
From hoary past, the ocean grows –
And sighing, softly laps our shores.
   
That ocean, yes, of sadness, is –
As is its ocean, twin, of bliss.
And like the waves, of dark and sun,
Those oceans two are truly one.

Waves on the ocean, with the sun breaking through clouds -- by qulady

 

















                    
2014 March 10, Mon. 3:30 pm
teachers' cafeteria, basement
New Utrecht High School
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York
(last stanza added March 16 Sun.)
  

Departure

 
Departure

She came at the end of the class and the day, and handed me the book I’d given her soon after the start of the term, almost seven months ago.

“But why?” I asked.

“I'm going to New Orleans.” she said—this quiet girl, who had worked these months without complaint—or even word.

Her voice was shaking and her eyes had tears.

“How long, Lan Fang,” I asked, “have you been here?”

“Two years.” she said.

Two years: a language, barely learned; a refuge, here at school, in this far land; a friend or two, perhaps—by chance or earned through effort; and progress—halting, slow—with books like the one that she now was dutifully returning.

How many nights were spent upon that book, deciphering the blur of foreign words?  How few— yet precious—her new friends and teachers...

And now, she would lose them, as she had lost the ones before.

How could I take that book?  Yet take it, I must.

I opened the book and saw another's name, whose visage floated up—a student gone and yet remembered, as a teacher does...

I shook my head and sighed.

 “Your parents too?” I asked.  She nodded yes.

“That’s good.” I said.  “I too will be with you.”

She stood quietly.

“Will you be here on Monday?”

 “No.” she said, and now more tears welled up.  Her voice was faint.

I searched and gave her tissues.  She took one, returned the other, bowed her head and left.

I strode towards the door and called, “Do write!  And let me know.  I will write, for you, a recommendation, when you’re needing one.”
 
She looked at me and slowly walked away.
 
Babui / Arjun
2012  March 23rd, Friday
(changed to prose form on 2015 Dec. 14th, Mon.)
Brooklyn
---------------------------------------------------------------
  
Please see also:  Departure-II
    

Here Was My Village

 
Here Was My Village
 
There is the tree, by the side of the pond,
Where the elders would gather. The children were fond
Of climbing its branches and hearing them speak.
And there was the dance, at the end of the week,
There, where the grasses are growing so green,
And all is now quiet and peaceful, serene.
 
Once there was singing and dancing and more,
The laughter resounding that now is no more,
The coming and going of women and men,
The play of the little ones, plentiful then,
Whose faces I see and whose names I recall,
There, where the grasses are growing so tall.
 
Here was a village, where now there is none,
For a nation has lost and another has won,
And all that is left, of the people that were,
Are the remnants of things, from which they infer --
The ones who now study the shards that they find --
That here was a village, that's still in my mind.
 
Here there was slaughter and here there was death,
Here, the pursuers the pursued had met.
They finished the task they'd been set and returned,
While ashes still smoldered and grasses still burned...
And I had escaped and another small child,
Who once had been gentle but then had grown wild.
 
There, where a sapling has grown to a tree,
Was where I was born, where a hut used to be.
There lived my father, my mother and three,
My brother, my sister and then-little me.
Where are they now, I wonder and turn
Away from the faces I once had seen burn.
 
Babui / Arjun
2011 May 21st, Sat.
Brooklyn