It's Raining Now In Brooklyn

It's Raining Now In Brooklyn

It's raining now in Brooklyn as the sky is lit in grays.
It's raining now in Brooklyn as the trees are glowing green.
It's raining now in Brooklyn as the congregation prays.
It's raining now in Brooklyn on this evening so serene.
It's raining now in Brooklyn as the day is ending slow.
It's raining now in Brooklyn as I slowly homeward go.

It will rain tonight in Brooklyn as the water slowly seeps.
It will rain tonight in Brooklyn as the cars are whooshing by.
It will rain tonight in Brooklyn as the tired city sleeps.
It will rain tonight in Brooklyn as the clouds become the sky.
It will rain tonight in Brooklyn as the world is turning slow.
It will rain tonight in Brooklyn and the dreams will come and go.

It will rain tomorrow morning and through all of Saturday.
It will rain tomorrow evening, as the skies grow dark again.
It will rain till it is dawning, when I will wake and I will say,
“The rain has finally ended.  And there's nothing to explain.”
And I will rise to walk in Brooklyn as the sun is rising slow,
I will rise to walk in Brooklyn as I've nowhere else to go.

2013 June 7th, Fri.
Brooklyn

Orbs Celestial

Orbs Celestial

I've seen, at dawn, the red and rising sun.
I've watched it sinking sadly in the west.
And in the noon of tropic summer, I
Have felt, upon my skin, its fiery zest.

And I have seen the ever-changing moon,
From crescent pallor, in the light of day,
To shining disk, with Venus at its side,
That lit my path on lonesome rural way.

And I have seen the planets and the stars,
On lifting eyes towards the desert sky –
And having seen, it seemed I'd drunk enough
Of wondrous joy to be content and die.

I've walked to work, before the light of dawn,
With Orion overhead – and silenced soul.
And so have orbs, celestial, touched this ant
And made, what man had madly sundered, whole.

2013 June 1st, Sat.
Bensonhurst Park,
Brooklyn

Hurt

Hurt

When we are injured, in our flesh
Or in our spirit, then
There are reactions that we feel
And pain is one of them.

The body heals or does its best.
The spirit too can heal –
But only if we act – or breathe,
Observing what we feel.

But if we tussle with our pain,
It only deepens more.
For words, to self or others, can't
Repair the part that's sore.

The hurt we feel is real, yet
It need not turn to hate.
Do not dismiss or nurse it. Watch
It form and dissipate.

And so it is with loss and grief,
And others hurts as well.
They come to us – and for awhile,
Within us, grow and dwell.

But then, like all that lives, they leave,
And that's as it should be.
As long as we're alive, from hurt,
We never will be free.

But that same breath, which lets in hurt,
Releases it again.
Whatever starts, has end – and so
There is an end to pain.

2013 June 1st, Sat.
Brooklyn

The Way It Is

The Way It Is

The world is full of madness, cruelties –
And people seem oblivious and proceed.
They pay attention to the petty things
But either can't or will not see beyond.

It may be blindness, callousness or fear,
Necessity or duties that prevent
Our seeing or our acting as we would
If eyes and conscience stayed in good repair.

We can't be saints or martyrs, every one,
But if the ones, who know the right from wrong,
Are silent, then the ones, who don't, prevail.
The sins excused become “the way it is”.

How hard it is to go against the flow,
To speak or act, when others will not join.
The emperor parades without his clothes,
And “adults” have the “sense” to smile and bow.

How many zealots have we suffered from,
Jihads, crusades and endless “wars against”,
Exterminations of the ones who're meek,
Intimidations of the ones who speak?

Competing with the zealot is the lord,
Who thrives from greed, corruption, violence,
Whose hired thugs extract the pound of flesh –
Who yet assumes, with time, the throne “divine”.

Oh pity us, this wretched human race,
That's cannibal and feeds upon itself.
Our wolves can prey at leisure on our sheep,
Who strive to see that errant ones obey.

And yet, amidst the cruel madness, see,
There still are islands left of sanity.
There's duty, love and silent sacrifice.
There's kindness left – and there's sincerity.

For every ten, who say, “That's how it is.”
There's one, who says, “That's not how it should be.”
For every one, who seeks for fame and wealth,
We've ten, who labor cheap and namelessly.

2013 May 30th, Thu.
Brooklyn
 

The Mother Tongue

The Mother Tongue

How strong that love that dwells within our hearts
And may be hidden long and then revealed,
The love we have for tongue of infancy,
In which we heard our mother's lullabies.

However much we may have practice in
A language learned when early childhood passed,
No other speech is understood as deep
And clear as that, in which we learned to speak.

We may not have the words that learning lends,
The words of books or those of speech urbane,
Or phrases that are fit for specialties,
But all that's human's served by mother's speech.

******
 
The mother may be she, who gave us birth,
Or he or she who tended us at first,
The one to whom we bonded, as a child,
The one who tried to slake our primal thirst.

And there are words forgotten, rhythms deep,
That surface unexpectedly in speech.
The tongues we speak are subtle, rich like wine.
The primal one remains our gift divine.

It may be language written, glorified,
Or tongue without a script – or dialect.
It gives us comfort when we hear or speak –
And is the hardest one, in which to lie.

2013 May 26th, Sun.
Brooklyn
sjanah@aol.com
 

Fools

Fools

I dreamed that I had woken and the wars had finally ended.
I dreamed that people reasoned and they knew they did not know.
I dreamed that that those who're humble had a voice that could be heard.
I dreamed that myths were seen as myths and facts were verified.

And in my dream, I went to sleep the sleep of peace, content,
For little did I know that I, to my own self, had lied.

I woke and saw that people, though they seemed to be awake,
Had put to sleep their conscience and, while praising liberty,
Did everything they could to please and strengthen hierarchy.
And so were soldiers sent to war and others to the schools.

And so it was, that though awake, I wished that I could sleep,
For cleverness was ruling and had rendered us as fools.

2013 May 26th, Sun.
Brooklyn
sjanah@aol.com 
 

Trees–Part II–Remembering

Trees – Part II
 
(Remembering)

And those who've lived, like I, who write this verse,
In climes where palm-trees sway and thrash in storms,
Remember, dimly, as the years take tolls,
The varied forms of trees in tropic lands.

Some leaves would brown and fall in seasons dry.
Then rains would come and paint in lushest greens.
Year 'round, the tal and coconut would soar.
And in cyclones, they'd bend and brush the roofs.

And in the fields, where peasants toiled in sun,
The millet, rice and maize would take their turns.
And yellow blooms of mustard, in that sun,
Amidst the greens, would burn like fairy-flames...

******

I still can see, with remnant inner eye:
The harvest golds that stretched to meet the sky;
Banana trees, whose leaves we ate upon;
And fragrant flesh, exposed, of seeds of palm.

I climb again upon the mango tree,
And scale the guava, in search of fruit,
But am entranced by scents of leaves that still
Appear to linger, after all these years...

How succulent, the jack-fruit, yet how hard
It was to hack, while balanced on its tree.
The heavy, prickly fruit would fall, at last,
To crash upon the mossy ground below.

******

The custard-apple and the tamarind
I still can taste – and others fading slow –
The berries crunchy, sour and sweet, the sap
Of canes whose fibers tested children's teeth...

How varied are the greens of tropic lands,
How many things we ate that came from plants,
How many spices, with their wondrous scents,
In curries and in moles of the world...

How far I am from what I left behind,
And yet these traces still remain in mind.
And here, I see these living trees and know
That life is one – so distance is no more.

2013 May 18th Sat. & 19th Sun.
Brooklyn
sjanah@aol.com