Peace and War

. 
Peace and War
.
The silence and the summer sun
On California’s coast,
The rustling of the leaves of trees,
The distant, passing train,
.
The letting go of everything 
Of which I once could boast,
The touching by the cooling breeze,
The easing of the strain,
.
The blue of sky, the green of leaves,
The warmth of sun on skin,
The calling of the bird I hear, 
The sway of grasses tall—
.
These all combine and so provide,
Within this world of sin,
A music of the eye and ear
That brings relief to all.
.
******
.
And yet, the all-devouring greed
Will rarely pause to taste
Of all of this that beings need,
While laying more to waste. 
.
So wealth will flow, accumulate,
And bombs will fall and burst,
As burnings rise, along with hate,
And children die of thirst.
.
****** 
.
I call to those who've closed their blinds
To open windows wide
And look, with open minds and hearts,
Across the harsh divide—
.
To see that children, everywhere,
And women, are the same—
That sentients feel of grief and pain,
As humans should of shame.
.
2024 July 15th, Mon.
Berkeley, California
.

The Salts of the Earth

  
The Salts of the Earth
 
The oceans, they are one, we know,
Though known by various names.
And when their currents meet, they mix 
And mingle over time.
 
But one may sink, the other rise,
Or travel side by side
For quite a while. Their colors,  shades
May vary widely, while
Reflecting, each, its history 
And so its current state—
Its temperature, its density, 
And all it carries. So,
Our races and our cultures—these 
Are varied, yet are one—
And so is all of sentience,
In all its forms diverse.
 
This summarizes all I know—
So here I'll end this verse.
 
2024 April 25th, Thu.
Berkeley, California
.

Be Open

 

Be Open

We’re driven not by reason but

By instincts and by feelings, yet

Our reason helps us on our way

And guards us from the snare and net.

And how can instincts, feelings work

When hearts have hardened or are dead,

And eyes and ears are closed to all

Except the comfort-views we're fed?

******

And how can caring, justice thrive

When hatred makes us deaf and blind,

Ignoring pleas, believing lies,

And shutting down the heart and mind?

Question, question what you know,

And turn away from comfort-news.

Resist the laziness of mind.

Be open, yes, to facts and views.

******

Beware the call, resist the urge

To demonize or deify—

To make supreme a god, a race,

A culture or to glorify

A nation or a class, or lift 

On high religion, custom, creed, 

A system of economy,

Or justify the wars of greed.

******

Do recognize what evil is.

Resist the call to turn to hate,

To cast the others down, despise,

Subdue, oppress, exterminate.

No god needs help from humans and

No creed needs other views suppressed,

Except the god or creed that fears

What might, by humans, be expressed.

******

We tend to worship those “above”

And spit upon the ones “below”.

Beware the virus that infects 

And leads to thoughts of “high” and “low”.

Beware of leaders! Be not led

Except by sanity of head

And purity of heart. Be open.

Live, until you're truly dead.

2024 March 14th, Thu.

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

Songs-No Better and No Worse

 
                 Songs/
No Better and No Worse
 
I’ve heard the songs of humans, those of birds,
The calls of frogs, the insect choruses—
And I have read that whales have songs, ornate,
With melodies that cross the ocean leagues.
 
******
 
Reflecting on what’s shared in all these things,
Some questions come to mind that might be strange
To others—or may not—that could arise
From what we humans feel on hearing these—
 
But could perhaps be pointers towards the things
That humans long have preferred to ignore,
For reasons justified much less by sense
Than faith—of ancient or of modern kind.
 
Do crickets have a sense of comedy?
Do langurs long for those that they have lost?
I do not know the answer to the first,
But think the second’s answer should be clear.
 
The fish that’s hooked must surely feel the pain
That a human would in such a circumstance—
And just as children can enjoy their play,
So also pups and calves and kittens may.
 
******
 
Pain and pleasure, happiness and grief—
And fear and anger, jealousy and love—
These come and go in us as all things do—
And surely not in you and me alone
 
Or other humans. We are part of life—
No better and no worse than ants or whales—
But special in our ways as all things are,
Including, in our case, the scope of war!
 
A song has length that could be short or long,
And this depends on things intangible.
So also, trees and humans have their lengths
In time, as do the whales and birds and mites.
 
Some things are for a moment, others last
A month, a year—or even till our ends—
And we ourselves are weaves within this flow—
That thread their tunes until it’s time to go.
 
******
 
The songs remind us then of what we are,
Forgotten in our dazed amnesia,

As silence still can do, if it’s embraced,
While letting go of all our prose and verse.
 
2022, July 7^th, Thu.
Brooklyn, New York