Reflections on a Tree

   
Reflections on a Tree
  
While slowly walking home this evening, I
Observed a tree that reached towards the sky.
It stood, with all its myriad fingers splayed,
And to a winter moon, in silence prayed.

I wondered if that still and silent tree
Was linked, by consciousness, to you and me.
It stood, beneath the sun and moon and stars,
A witness to our lives and loves and wars.

And surely it cared little for our kind,
That prides itself on nimbleness of mind,
While knowing more, of light and earth and air,
Than you or I could ever know or care.

But if in truth, of mind there is but one,
It shared with us, who hither, thither run,
That same awareness, but of aspect slowed,
While standing still, beside a city road.

2014 February 14th, Fri. 7:54 pm
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York
   

Snow

     
Snow
  
It's winter and the snow is all around.
It's heaped like powdered sugar on the ground.
It drifted down like manna from above
And now it's here – for us to hate or love.

And on the prairie, on a moonlit night,
The silent snow is like an ocean white.
But in the city, in the light of day,
The snow is soot – and chocolate and gray.

Within the gutter, underneath the ice,
The slush is hiding, like a secret vice.
But in the parks, beneath the sullied snow,
The dormant grass awaits its chance to grow.

2014 February 12th, Wed.
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn
 

Lion Dance

Lion Dance
  
I hear the distant pulsing of the drums.
And as I near, the sound grows louder.  Soon,
I find that I, along with prancing kids
Who strain at mothers’ hands and skid on ice,
Have synchronized my steps.  I glide along –
And even climbing ice-hills at the curbs
Is effortless.  It seems we gain in strength,
When martials make us dance – or march to war.

The young man strikes the drum with rhythmic force.
The leather, taut, responds to every blow.
In music, there is often scent of sex,
Which we, as children, did not care to know.
But being male, and so of warrior-gene,
The pipes and drums beguiled me as a boy,
When every year, upon a certain day,
I heard the fascists marching up the street...

I pass the drummer and the dancer and
I enter in the Chinese restaurant.
And soon enough, they’re there. The drummer stays
And beats his drum outside, upon the street.
The lion enters, dancing, with his back
And tail supported by his trailing friend.
No room for two to be the lion’s legs –
The place is busy, with the tables filled.

They stay awhile beside me, near the door.
The tail instructs the lion, who’s half-blind,
To walk towards the gods, in an alcove red,
With plastic lights in lieu of votive lamps.
 And there, the lion bows to the bearded ones
And towards the goddess of compassion too.
And when the bows are done, he walks the floor
And then returns, to bow to gods again.

I glimpse his face, with glasses, grimacing
From all his effort, walking weighted, bowed.
His mouth is open wide, as if in pain,
And though it’s cold, I know his sweat runs wet.
The Han enjoy their new-year's lion-dance
And dance-of-dragon too.  In China, they’ve
A fortnight off – but in Hong Kong, three days…
And here, they work – or take a day sans pay.

And when I ask, I’m told this dance – and all
The bows the lion-boy did, while bending deep,
Towards the gods and goddess – these will bring
The owners fortune, luck, prosperity…
And so it is, that every year, we hear
The drums that rouse the streets – and see
The lion and the dragon bow and dance,
As Montreal or Rome becomes Canton.
  
2014 February 9th, Sun.,
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn
 

Bharot Xadhin (India, Free)

    
The poem in Bangla (Bengali) is followed by a rather free translation into English.
  
Vowels in Bangla are usually intermediate in length (duration) between what would be considered long and short for English vowels.  The stress accent in Bangla is much weaker than in English, and is generally on the first syllable.

In the Roman transcription I have used here for Bangla, the vowels a, e, i, o, u are as in Latin (or Italian & Spanish). 
 
Two vowels have been added:  e` and o`, with sounds roughly like those of the vowels in (the noun or the stressed verb) can and (standard British English) hot. 
 
These two added vowels are more "open" versions of e and o, respectively.  Note that the o` is still a rounded vowel, unlike the o in the usual U.S. pronunciation of hot.
 
The ~ following a vowel indicates a (faint) nasalization.

The consonants t and d are, as in the Latin languages, dentals – pronounced by touching the tongue-tip to the back of the upper teeth. 
  
The t' and d' are alveolar (not circumflex as in  many other Indian languages).  They are pronounced by touching the tongue-tip to the gum ridge of the upper teeth, roughly as in English.

The h after a consonant indicates added aspiration (an unvoiced puff of air, as in the English h).  A consonant that is not followed by an h is unaspirated – and so should not be followed by that extra puff of air.  For speakers of English and most other languages that are not Indic (Indo-Aryan), this distinction may be difficult to hear and reproduce.
  
I have used x to represent the sound of the sh cluster of written English, so as not to create an exception to the use of h as an aspirant.

The letter c is used for the cluster ch in English chum, without the aspiration that is more evident in English chin. The aspirated version is written ch.

All other consonant letters used have values that are roughly the same as in their most common usage in English.
  
========================================
    
Bharot Xadhin

Ko`to din bade, e dexer theke
Bidexer bahinir jaoa!
Akaxe bataxe, ureche bhore
Xadhin Bharoter haoa!

Ki kore boli xediner ko`tha,
Dirgho kahini aj?
Chokher jo`le, bhaxie dilam
Ei Bharoter laj.

Elo Ingrej, korlo do`khol,
Roilo pracin bhar.
Ge`lo Ingrej, tao ki khajna
Caibe jomidar?

Elo Ingrej.  Karkhana-ko`le
Sromiker do`l khat’e.
Ge`lo Ingrej.  Ho`be ki jo`ma
Sromiker bo`l mat’he?

Notun juge, xo`hore, ga~e
Axbe ki khalax xexe?
Purono dukkher kapor chere,
Ut’hbe ki Bharot hexe?

Xonibar, 8-oi Phebruari, 2014
Bruklin, Niu Io`rk
========================================

India, Free

The foreign troops depart at last
And end our long despair.
The dawn is breaking, as we breathe
Of freedom’s heady air.
 
But how can we recount the tale –
That story long of sorrow?
Our tears now wash away that shame.
We look to India’s morrow.

The British came and lorded, took
Their tax – as brigands do.
The British leave.  Will "landlords" still
Demand their share as due?

The British came – and workers toiled
To death in mine and mill.
The British leave.  Will workers now
Have strength to show their will?

In this new age, to village, town,
Will freedom come, at last?
Will India rise and smile as she
Casts off her painful past?

2014 Feb. 8th, Sat.
Brooklyn, New York
   

Cud

Cud

A woman, in her passion, cries
Out not for god or lover –
For though she mouths the names of both,
They only serve as cover.

The patient, in his agony,
He moans – but not for others.
His groaning is his comfort, bare.
So pain and lust are brothers.

And when a poet recreates,
On paper, hurt or passion,
His inner space, he ventilates
By channels of tradition.

******

For every poet sane, you’ll find
A dozen more, demented.
To sanity, I lost my claim
And never have regained it.

So do not search, within my verse,
For reason past the rhyme –
For madness is this inmate’s curse
And so he does his time.

And though a writer may have hope
His work will find some favor
In those who read him when he’s gone,
For now alone, I labor.

******
  
This poem that I’m writing is
A cloud that’s floating by.
I’ll watch it till I lose it in
The ever-changing sky.

The stanzas that I write are like
The leaves upon a tree.
They flutter in the breeze and then
They wither, falling free.
 
The verses that I scribble are
As waves upon the sea.
They’re born – and undulate a while –
And then they cease to be.

******  

I taste the grass of verity
And chew it like a cow.
Some write for a posterity,
I savor here and now.

So some of what I’ve written is
The sound of satisfaction –
The feel and scent and taste of grass –
In bovine stupefaction.

But when the cow has lost her calf,
She calls for it, in pain.
We hear her lowing in the dark
And know – it is in vain.

******
  
When tempests come, they bend the trees
And make the branches cry.
And in the midst of wars, you hear
A grieving mother’s sigh.

So some of what I’ve written is,
In essence, just a wail.
You’ll hear it rise and ululate –
And lose it in the gale.

For every leaf that withers, there’s
Another, in the bud.
For every poet, gone his way,
Another, chewing cud.

2014 February 6th, Thu
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn
 

Snow on City Trees

Snow on City Trees

    

In every region of the Earth, we see

That Nature teaches men humility.

The nations of the northwest rule the planet –

A source of pride for every John and Janet.

Then winter scowls and shows the northern tribe

It can't be stopped by force or bought by bribe.

The polar vortex whirls, as gutters freeze

And blizzards drape, with snows, the city's trees.

It snowed all day – but now at night it thaws.

And as I walk, I see the trees and pause.

They stand unmoving, yet they seem to fight,

With darkened forms, against their burdens white.

The evergreens are bent with powder-loads

That slide and scatter on the snow-plowed roads.

The trees that spread and arc appear in flower,

As if to mock this blustering season's power.

A skeletal tree is limned in dark and white.

Bereft of leaves, it still gives stark delight.

With tracery of twigs against the sky,

It does the winter, with aplomb, defy.

The trees are comfort for my weary eyes.

Their patience lives, when all our hubris dies.

I thought they're fighting.  Now, I see they're not.

With snows, they're dancing – at a leisured trot.

If men, like trees, would dance with Nature too,

It might be pleasanter for me and you.

2014 February 3rd, Mon.
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn
 

Sex

    
Sex
   
A woman said,
“There have been times, that often stretched through years,
when sex, though still in consciousness, was like
the distant moon.  And there were other times,
when the act was like the sun that penetrates
and lights again the lamp that’s called desire.”
   
A man replied,
“Since puberty – and even from before,
when sex was like a scent I did not know,
it’s been with me, an ever-smoldering fire
that dims and brightens, rising up in flames.
It never truly dies, but waxes, wanes.”

Another said,
“This varies so, from man to man – and more
between the women – that to speak as if
it is the same, by gender, may be wrong.
The sexes, they are different – but so
is each from other – and from self by age.”

And yet another,
“You speak of sex, while some have such distress
that this is furthest from their minds, besieged…
Who thinks of sex in famines or in wars,
or when we're caring for the old, the sick,
the children and their messes?  Mating’s out.”

So each described this elemental urge,
as each might talk about the restless sea.
And some described the waves and others, tides –
and others spoke of variant presences…
And yet, its essence stayed, for all their talk,
for each of them, a thing of mystery.

2014 February 2nd, Sun.
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn