Urban Epiphany

    
Urban Epiphany
    
On exiting the school, he saw the sky
And then the row of tall, majestic trees
That lined the street, beside the football field.
He stood and quietly looked awhile at these.
 
He saw – the trunks that dwarfed the ones like him,
The mighty arms outspread – as tentacles
That reached towards the light for nourishment,
The branches, twigs – the leaves, by autumn crisped…
 
He stood and stared awhile, and went his way,
A little being, walking to his nest,
Humbled by the trees – that would remain,
When he and those he knew were memories…
  
He trudged along, a weary working man
Who trundled home his workload for the eve.
And in the concrete “park”, he stopped to sit
And pen these lines and slowly sip his tea.
  
And as he writes of what he saw and felt,
The sky has darkened much. The traffic lights
Are flashing yellow, red and green –
And silhouettes are heading home, like him...
  
On reaching home, he’ll sit and type these lines
And post them in the ether, there to stay
Awhile, be read, perhaps, then fade away –
As even trees are lost, like men and leaves…
   
2014 October 21st, Tue.
Brooklyn, New York
  

There in the Hills

 
There in the Hills
  

Noah "Bud" Ogle Homeplace built in the late 1880's, located on
the Roaring Fork Motor Trail, Great Smoky Mountains, U.S.A.
Source: https://www.facebook.com/ldcoffeypics

  

  














There, in the hills, where the grasses are green,
There I will live, in the valley serene.
There, in the morning, I’ll climb up the trail,
To be with the mists and the clouds, as they sail.
 
There, in the noontime, I'll sit in the shade
And chew on my morsels, with water I brought
From the spring on the hillside, so cold and so sweet.
And there I will sit and be lost in my thought.
  
2014 September 6, Sat.
Brooklyn, New York
   

অন্ধকারে (O`ndhokare -- In the Darkness)

   
অন্ধকারে

মনে পড়ে সেদিনের কথা,
ছোটবেলায়ে শোনা গান৷
মেঘ ভেসে যায়, জোয়ার-ভাটা
জীবন-মরন চলে৷

জ্বালাই তবু, সন্ধ্যা-বেলায়ে,
প্রদীপটুকু, জান --
রাত্রি আসে, অন্ধকারে
কে যে কথা বলে৷
 
-------------------------------------------------------------
In the Darkness

I remember the past, the songs I heard when small…
The clouds fly by, the tides of life and death go on…

And yet, at dusk, I light the little oil-lamp.
In the darkness, someone speaks.
 
-------------------------------------------------------------
O`ndhokare

Mone po`re xediner ko`tha,
chot'obe`lae xona gan.
Megh bhexe jae, joar-bhat'a
jibo`n-mo`ron co`le.

Jalai tobu, xondhe be`lae,
prodip-t'uku, jan --
ratri axe, o`ndhokare
ke je ko`tha bo`le...

Mongol, 12-oi O`gast, 2014 kri.
Bruklin, Notun Io`rk

For a brief guide to the transcription used above, and 
to the pronunciation, please see the preface at:  
http://thedailypoet.blogspot.com/2014/02/bharot-xadhin-indias-freedom.html
   

Easter Break

Easter Break
  
I went up to Manhattan today,
as once a year I do,
around this time, on Easter break,
or “spring break” as they call it here,
to see the doctor, for the test that tells me
how much longer I might live.    \1

So also, countless others do...                     

And when returning, heading south again
on a gray First Avenue, I saw, ahead,
the tall buildings far away, whose tops
had disappeared within the clouds
that swept across Manhattan isle in veils.

That’s something one can see at times
in what the Brooklyners of old still call
“New York”.

And though the traffic was as usual then,
while walking down the sidewalk there I felt
a distance from the madness all around –
a quiet peace, a place of solitude
where time itself was lost, so I could be,
in loneliness, alone with those who’d gone.

And something, other than my hunger, drew
me then to seek and find the cafeteria
in the main building of the hospital.  And there
I sat, remembering the times I’d been before
in hospitals, with parents, cousin, aunt –
and others too, my relatives and friends,
who ailed – and how I then would go,
when they were sleeping, for a bite to eat
in such a place. 

And almost all were gone…

And I remembered, too, my sojourns in
the hospitals, and how I chafed in them,
a patient in a bed, from childhood on,
and how, each time, I’d willed myself to walk
and so to exit out.

I’d found a window seat,
and there I sat and ate, while looking out
at people walking in the street below.

Manhattan, where my sister once had worked
and lived...

It was a rainy day, and overcast,
as I sat quietly and read
a chapter of a book – and savored then
this passing Easter break.

2014 April 15th, Tue. 3:58 pm
New York, New York
  
1.  I found out later that the test this time
      had turned out okay, which was a relief.
   

I Walked Through the Woods

          
I Walked Through the Woods
    
I walked by myself on a path through the woods,
When the trees were green with spring.
I walked through the woods, in the dappled shade,
With the tender leaves aflame.

I walked by myself and I breathed the scent
Of the rain on the ground and the trees.
And the bark was wet, it was dark and wet,
But the leaves were touched with light.

I walked by myself and I heard the sounds,
The sounds of the leaves in the breeze.
And the ground was soft beneath my feet
And the leaves were dancing flames.

I walked by myself on a winding path,
When the woods were  a tender green.
And my heart was lit by the grace of spring
As the leaves were glowing green.

2014 March 31st, Mon. 3:37 pm
Teachers’ Cafeteria, Basement
New Utrecht High School
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn 
 

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.)
  

Water-Wind

  
Water-Wind
   
I sit again in solitude within
the basement teachers’ cafeteria,
deserted as the school day draws to an end.

There’s silence, but for one incessant hum –
a sound that's coming from a hidden source
that surely is a pump or fan at work...

In part, it’s soothing, like a waterfall;
in part, it’s not – a distant, manic whine.

******

There’s action in a life.  There’s also rest.
And both are needed for a balance sane.
Yet humans now must speed, like swift machines.

Our flesh and spirit can’t endure this race.
And so, like water in an oasis,
this quietude can slake a wanderer’s thirst.

And yet, there is this hum – that’s water, while
it’s whistling wind, with grit of blowing sand.

2014 January 13th, Mon.
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn