A Series of Poems Loosely Based on the Hebrew Songs of David
With No Apology
![Moon Peak - Dharamshala - Himachal Pradesh India.(Dhauladhar Range is a outer part of Himalayan Mountains Highest part of the mountain in this photo is called Moon Peak ) [OC] [1280x757]](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-nNrGTvKGOsonDVrzW8ED-wcwy3rM62LbVKU0U2KtZau0R0b_eDUifB6QMxmSo1Imqa1WFOteYaNPzpegskxFTV0evs6Ok3KAyEsuGpTyKNA2x0sm_9J4GLGr0G_9f7e7rz2F4Q_UPywEsFrotHzR3M1TTH_ibgxa3Vr9711uyX5GrTlHciHz6Fahg)
By Kenneth Ireland
Dedicated to Zenshin Philip Whalen who loved words more than any man I’ve ever met.
A heartfelt thanks to James Ford Roshi for lighting a firecracker.
Our prayers for David who listened with all his being till the very end. You inspired us.
It takes a village. I have so many people to thank for their support, real help and inspiration for this book. My village includes:
Kumar Abhishek, Akash Patwal, Shivam Nayar, Ayush Singh and Mira Randhawa, all fabulous young Indian designers.
My business partner Hardev Singh, his wife Reshma, their children, Saijal, Tamana, Priyanshu, and Hari’s mother Bimla Devi.
Harsh Kumar Bhardwaj, Parveen Kumar Bhardwaj, Chu Chu Bhardwaj, Dai Devi Bhardwaj, Sushil Kumar, Jeevan Singh.
Bablu Bhardwaj, his wife Babli, children Aru, Baru, Rinku Bhardwaj, his wife Laltia Devi, children Ashu, Gudiya, and their late mother Subhadra Kumari Bhardwaj.
Tasif Mustafa and Aqib Mushtaq Watloo, and Tenzin Rabgyal.
James Ismael Ford Roshi, Jakushu Gregory Wood, Rebecca Del Rio, Larry Robinson, Edward Oberholtzer Roshi, Khenpo Kunga Dakpa, Alejandro Garcia de Khype, and Hanut Bal. Christopher Childs, Scott Hunt, Daniel Shurman, Judith Stevenson, and Morgan Zo Callaghan.
Thanks also to Jon Logan, his husband John Paine, their family, and Susanne Zuerbig for their wonderful support and encouragement.
My deepest thanks to my late Uncle Donald Ireland and Richard Rockwell for their generosity.
© Kenneth L. Ireland
September 22nd, 2022
McLeod Ganj, Himachal Pradesh, India
The Introduction
First week: Songs One to Seven
Song 1, Psalm 24, Raise High your Gates O Jerusalem
Song 2, Psalm 23, Following the Flock from Palampur to Chamba
Song 3, Psalm 37, Lady Elgin Becomes a Widow
Song 4, Psalm 137, By the Rivers of Babylon
Song 5, Psalm 90 going on 18
Song 6, Psalm 119, There’s a Boulder in the Road. Is this the hand of god?
Song 7, Psalm 58, A Snake and a woman. This short story has a happy ending.
Second week, Songs Eight to Twelve
It was a dark time and we stayed inside, repeating to ourselves as if we couldn't understand.
Song 8, Psalm 104: 20-23, On Being Mauled by a bear, a dirge
Song 9, Psalm 119:105, Thy word is like a heat seeking missile
Song 10, Psalm 84:5, The Highway to Zion was washed away last night
Song 11, Psalm 77, Hath God forgotten to be gracious?
Song 12, Psalm 121, Give up all hope until you can't!
Third Week, Songs Twelve to Eighteen
The Days are growing shorter, and the night is as black as it gets. We still look within.
Song 12, Psalm 139, An Exegesis on the Blackness of the Night
Song 13, Psalm 56, O Captain, My Captain
Song 14, Psalm 57, Indra’s Net of Jewels Catches a Spider
Song 15, Psalm 135, Dredging up Buddha from the Yangtze
Song 16, Psalm 59, And At Evening, Let Them Return
Song 17, Psalm 66:10-16, I opted for the vegetarian menu
Song 18, Psalm 130, "De profundis”
Fourth Week, Songs Nineteen to Twenty-Five
Only light rain today. The monsoon is breaking
Song 19, Psalm 71, Put Me to Confusion
Song 20, Psalm 34; 147, Bablu Called in Tears
Song 21, Psalm 103, Prose & Poem at Jimmy’s
Song 22, Psalm 122, How I Rejoiced!
Song 23, Psalm 109, Saying Yes in The Darkness
Song 24, Psalm 107:24-30, Monsoon should be over!
Song 25, Psalm 104:19, Basho Sings a Psalm
Introduction
Buddhist Koans or Hebrew Psalms? We Don’t Need to Pick a Fight.
“War crimes by one party to a conflict never justify war crimes by another.”
Years ago I was shocked when I learned that the people who venerate the songs of David and claim to have made a covenant with the only One God showered cluster bombs on Qana in Southern Lebanon where Jesus is said to have performed his first miracle--turning water into wine. The party goers asked Jesus, “Why did you save the best wine for the end?” I ask anyone willing to listen if all the singing and dancing coupled with the veneration of the songs themselves as being inspired actually fostered, or at least reinforced this pernicious view that guns, bombs and self-defense killing are just facts of life. If this is the last word, it’s as bad as the first squibbles.
The Israeli attack was more than 25 years ago. Sadly it was not the last assault on Muslim Palestinians. It continues as steadily as the monks and nuns, Jews, Anglicans and even a sprinkling of Unitarians, chant the psalms.
I'm certainly not trying to pick a side in this fight, nor am I trying to diminish the importance of getting history right, or at least as close to right as we can manage, but don’t tell me how to view the fire power or the chants of David’s armies. Almost 50 years ago a Jesuit friend actually learned Hittite in order to reengineer their war songs and distinguish them from what David’s cohorts used to sing to fortify their spirits before battle. A remarkably Jesuit enterprise. I couldn't tell a Hittite from a Canaanite or remember who won, who was more war-like, who killed more people or took more booty. How are we to know that anyway beyond the propaganda of the victor? Anderson Cooper was not around to report the battles, and David, the religious conqueror, controlled the press release anyway.
Catholic priests say the Holy Office every day following the discipline of cloistered religious men and women. I checked. That obligation is still in effect. They read, contemplate, and pray with these ancient songs. What do they do when they come across horrific barbarism? Turn a blind eye? Explain it away as the result of the passage of time and cultural revolutions? That seems to be the response of most liberal theologians.
My friend the Zen teacher James Ford asked me to suggest a few psalms that I felt were authentic and still spoke to me. He was rereading them with an old Unitarian friend who’d suffered a series of strokes. I made an attempt. Both of us had a hard time with so much of the sentiment expressed we both wanted to take out a thick red pen. But following the Zen adage not to pick or choose, I felt obliged to look at the whole body of work, every stinking bit of it.
Read, contemplate, pray. I accept the challenge. However I want to avoid reading from an impregnable fortress of first principles, though that’s often where the psalmist's language leads me, an ivory tower of impervious prayer. I am even unsure about the performative action of prayer. I will try to read them as poetry. What’s also important for me is trying to ask at least a few good questions. Maybe there’s the possibility of starting to think about subjects near and dear to our hearts--perhaps too near and too dear for ordinary scrutiny--in ways that can crack some of life’s puzzles. But it has to start close to our hearts. Thus poems not commentary. This was the impetus for writing my very personal responses to these ancient and revered songs.
Like a good foot soldier in the struggle of Light versus Darkness, I checked footnotes for lines that interested me, and even referred to several in what I wrote. But stories, especially ones with lots of footnotes, aren't worth much if people don't or can't relate. I’ve spent a good deal of time deciding if my reader needs to see any footnotes. When it is important to identify who is Hittite, I tried to write that information into the text.
A note about words and language. I read, think, sing and follow an argument in English. I can also read poetry in French with some ease and know that it feels different. I’ve tried at several points in my life to learn Latin and Spanish, even Greek, but after eight years, I know that I cannot claim Virgil or Ovid’s vision of the world. Only the most dedicated language aficionados claim that poetry is read through a dictionary. I do not use Hindi or Tibetan much at all, much less fluently, but they are the background languages for my reworking David’s songs. Words come through a filter. I only claim my own eyes. But to acknowledge my limitations, I’ve been as spartan as possible in my choice of English words.
As I read, contemplated and wrote, I was distressed that so many people died. It was not planned. It just happened. I told myself to keep writing. Perhaps dawn would break through the gloom on its own. About death--my life here in a small village in the Himalayan foothills is very different from my life in the West. Healthcare is primitive. People die young and unexpectedly. About war--I live in a community of refugees and exiles near the Indian Pakistani border. We are close to the border between Nepal and Tibet. The possibility of war never disappears. The sting of war is still fresh. I would like to think that my circumstance has opened a window into why these ancient songs have endured. Certainly modern Israelis claim that their life circumstances have allowed them to continue to sing the warlike parts of these songs in a way that David’s armies might have recognized.
They say that Thomas Aquinas towards the end of his life gave up the thread of his theological thinking, and turned his hand towards poetry--pretty bad poetry in my view but à chacun son goût . I will close my collection with a riff on Aquinas who, at least in my imagination, faces death with a praise song on his lips.
Raise High your Gates O Jerusalem
The First Song, Psalm 24
7/30/22, the beginning date
Today I sing of construction and death
Of making and taking away.
I once heard some angels sing
In plain chant
“O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors.”
I sat behind the screen, not allowed
To see the cloistered nuns’
Certainly not their bodies,
But not even the wimpels
That limited their sight to Him Alone
I could not gaze into their eyes,
And had to content myself with
A soft song of return to the City of God.
This was as close as I was allowed to venture.
My carpenter called to say
My doors would have to wait a day.
The father of one of the workers died last night
And he, a pandit, had to attend to the rituals of death.
.
I love Sushil.
He works well.
His eye is true.
His lines are straight and plumb.
His doors close and latch.
Jerusalem is no more holy than my Indian Jogiwara Village.
The nuns who sang so sweetly believed theirs was the City of God.
Though I never trusted Augustine, I almost did
When I heard their soft cry to the Lord.
May they sing for Sushil today as he lights the pyre to consume this father’s body.
Raise high your gates, O McLeod Ganj, so that we all can pass through.
Sushil and his carpenters will return tomorrow.
Two solid wooden doors to finish.
Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.
Psalm 24 King James Version
The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.
For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.
Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place?
He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.
He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.
This is the generation of them that seek him, that seek thy face, O Jacob. Selah.
Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.
Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.
Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.
Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory. Selah.
Psalm 24
यह धरती और उस पर की सब वस्तुएँ यहोवा की है। यह जगत और इसके सब व्यक्ति उसी के हैं।
यहोवा ने इस धरती को जल पर रचा है। उसने इसको जल—धारों पर बनाया।
यहोवा के पर्वत पर कौन जा सकता है? कौन यहोवा के पवित्र मन्दिर में खड़ा हो सकता है और आराधना कर सकता है?
ऐसा जन जिसने पाप नहीं किया है, ऐसा जन जिसका मन पवित्र है, ऐसा जन जिसने मेरे नाम का प्रयोग झूठ को सत्य प्रतीत करने में न किया हो, और ऐसा जन जिसने न झूठ बोला और न ही झूठे वचन दिए हैं। बस ऐसे व्यक्ति ही वहाँ आराधना कर सकते हैं।
सज्जन तो चाहते हैं यहोवा सब का भला करे। वे सज्जन परमेश्वर से जो उनका उद्धारक है, नेक चाहते हैं।
वे सज्जन परमेश्वर के अनुसरण का जतन करते हैं। वे याकूब के परमेश्वर के पास सहायता पाने जाते हैं।
फाटकों, अपने सिर ऊँचे करो! सनातन द्वारों, खुल जाओ! प्रतापी राजा भीतर आएगा।
यह प्रतापी राजा कौन है? यहोवा ही वह राजा है, वही सबल सैनिक है, यहोवा ही वह राजा है, वही युद्धनायक है।
फाटकों, अपने सिर ऊँचे करो! सनातन द्वारों, खुल जाओ! प्रतापी राजा भीतर आएगा।
वह प्रतापी राजा कौन है? यहोवा सर्वशक्तिमान ही वह राजा है। वह प्रतापी राजा वही है।
Following the Flock from Palampur to Chamba
The Second Song, Psalm 23
We don’t know jack shit about sheep, herds or shepherds, but, despite this glaring lack, “The Lord is my Shepherd” remains a perennial favorite.
The Gaddi were nomadic until they learned to drive taxis, clean and cook for the Tibetans who landed in their hill station little more than 60 years ago and the Westerners who followed the lamas into the high foothills of the Himalayas, the Dhauladhars.
Here where I live Gaddi men used to graze huge flocks during the winter. Many still do. Before monsoon and after the snow has melted, shepherds set off in search of sweet grass high up where they will stay until the snows force them once again, along with the lemurs and bears, to retreat to the lower plains where they can interfere in the lives of other wanderers.
They and their sheep cross the main road near Palampur, and head across the difficult mountains until they arrive nearly 100 kilometers north in the Chamba Valley--three weeks trekking. Their favored grasslands are near Bharmour where the oldest wooden temple in the world is found. Chaurasi is said to have been built by the descendants of Greek craftsmen who followed Alexander to the ends of the earth, that is until his army revolted and turned back at the nearby Beas River. I saw with my own eyes the traditional Greek grape motif carved above a lintel thousands of kilometers from Macedonia.
This is where I propose to sing about the life of a shepherd, as far removed from the third millennium before the Savior as the psalmist’s song is removed from the Court of King James.
I sing my sad song about a shepherd
Who drove his sheep
Across the highway near my house
And headed into the high mountains
In search of sweet grass.
Just two days ago
The local newspaper reported
In remote Rajgundha lightning struck.
70 sheep and goats died.
It’s monsoon. The ground soaks up the water greedily,
Fog so thick your path disappears.
Our shepherd sought refuge under a tree.
He and his boys lived but they lost their flock
And their livelihood
In a flash.
I wonder if their dogs survived.
There is a fund for compensation
When tragedy strikes like the hand of god
And the shadow of death covers the valley.
I don’t have even a faint idea of
A shepherd’s life
in the time of David,
But it wasn’t Little Bo Peep.
Psalm 23, King James Version
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
Lady Elgin Becomes a Widow
Do not fret because of those who are evil
or be envious of those who do wrong;
for like the grass they will soon wither,
like green plants they will soon die away. Psalm 37:34 ff
I went looking for a psalm extolling highway robbery. There must be one. This is the way of conquerors, and King David led armies. Lady Elgin sought to honor her husband’s death in a far land behind a modest stone plaque, leaving plaudits in Westminster to his partners in crime. Her husband also led armies.
James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin and 12th Earl of Kincardine, Governor of Jamaica, Governor General of the Province of Canada, special commissioner to China, and Viceroy of India, died of a heart attack while crossing a rope bridge over the river Chadly in Kullu, 100 kilometers east of where I live. It was on the 20th of November 1863, so post monsoon, but still the river can be wild. I have crossed it myself, though in a car on a concrete bridge. Photographs show a substantial man who should have had enough sense to avoid scary bridges, but duty called.
He was not the man who stole marble sculptures (known as the Elgin Marbles) from the Parthenon in Athens, that was his father, but he did burn the Summer Place in Beijing, and forced the Emperor to cede Hong Kong to the Queen “in perpetuity.”
I cannot find Lord Elgin’s grave,
though it is said he is buried here.
Saint John of the Wilderness
is modest enough
For a Saint who lost his head.
A simple marble stone behind the church
Hides Lord Elgin’s sins.
He knew
Sins enough for one man
And was ashamed.
Did he ask for forgiveness
Or even recognize them
For what they really were.
Certainly after Gandhi
Other people began to tally up the loot.
The British forged solid reasons for
Conquering kingdoms
Subduing Mohammedans
But really they were just greedy
Bastards.
In a land where the dead are burned
Graveyard stones that could be
In York or Leeds
Though not elaborate enough for Canterbury or Westminster
Seem out of place.
The weeds grow thick in the monsoon rain.
All that I can really see on the stone that his widow
Set in the graveyard are dates.
It is tended because tourists come and ask
If this is the man who stole
Marbles from the Parthenon.
He cannot be charged with the sins of his father
Or perhaps he can.
People talk.
Wait on the Lord, and keep his way, and he shall exalt thee to inherit the land: when the wicked are cut off, thou shalt see it.
I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree.
Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not: yea, I sought him, but he could not be found.
Psalm 137 “By the Rivers of Babylon”
Wipe away your tears, then deal with the closing line.
Wipe away your tears
You survived
Rejoice
You can still taste salt
In your tea
You’re not captive
Yet you cry
Poor fools
Today the rivers swell
And wipe away whole villages
You remember Lhasa
And weep again
Death has that effect
You saved your mother
But other mothers left behind
Died
A few still trickle across
Mount Meru
Camps built for thousands
Receive one or two
No more god-throne
Hoping that freedom
Might birth democracy
Instead a new president
Gets drunk
And rips up the work of
Generations
Still we chant Tibet
In hushed tones
It has come to symbolize
Enlightenment of a Buddha
We use his name
To call ourselves home
We no longer rejoice
When little ones are dashed
Against the stones of Babylon
If only for that
It is enough
King James Version
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.
For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.
How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.
If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.
Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof.
O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.
Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.
This one you can sing. Thank you Bob Marley. It’s fun.
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down
Yeah, we wept, when we remembered Zion
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down
Yeah, we wept, when we remembered Zion
There the wicked
Carried us away in captivity
Required from us a song
Now how shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Let the words of our mouth and the meditation of our heart
Be acceptable in thy sight here tonight
Let the words of our mouth and the meditation of our hearts
Be acceptable in thy sight here tonight
By the rivers of Babylon (dark tears of Babylon)
There we sat down (you got to sing a song)
Yeah, we wept (sing a song of love)
When we remembered Zion (yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah)
By the rivers of Babylon (rough bits of Babylon)
There we sat down (you hear the people cry)
Yeah, we wept (they need their God)
When we remembered Zion (ooh, have the power)
By the rivers of Babylon (oh yeah yeah), there we sat down (yeah, yeah)
Psalm 90 going on 18
The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away. Psalm, 90
The Psalms have nothing
Good to say
About Old Age and Death
Few religions do.
It’s their last chance to convert
The Libertine.
Fear mongering fanatics were numbered
Among the psalmists.
Legend says this writer was David,
Who died at four score minus 10.
Being generous
And at the outside of his limits
I might have another 2 good years
Before I fly away.
I grow old
But damn it
At 78
I’m 18
I don’t move as fast
Or go as far
But my shorter step
And slower pace
Suit me well.
At 22
Elliot was full of himself
Moaning about old age.
Couldn’t he get hard?
Fantasyland.
I won't
Roll up my trousers
And go chasing mermaids.
I promise.
From "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
T.S. Elliot
“I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.”
There’s a Boulder in the Road.
Is this the hand of god?
No one had come to work
By noon.
Even at the snail’s pace
Of mountain life
This was unusual.
Shivam hiked down the slope
to Sushil’s shop.
Legs sturdy enough for the adventure
He texted, complete with click
A massive boulder slid
Onto our narrow slip of road.
Paths up and down
Both blocked.
A car tumbled down the steep ravine,
Trapping a Tibetan family in mud.
The rain had not stopped after it had done its damage.
It was cold and wet.
This was the situation.
It demanded a response.
I turned and tried to pray--
The psalmist sees a blocked road
As about lying, law, judgment
And fear.
Throw in some revelation.
The expected response.
I am not startled by any surprise
Or innovation. Certainly
He loves his roadmap to
The High and Dry.
My path puts one foot
After the other
Perhaps forced to stop
While resourceful Indian men
Dig a Tibetan family out of the mud.
Not the first time we can thank Indians
In a time of need.
Call it anything you like.
The mother was frightened
And grateful when they were
Able to pry open the car door.
I am grateful.
In the mountain way
We will just drive around the boulder
Until something changes again.
It always does.
Psalm 119:29-39, The Message Bible
Barricade the road that goes Nowhere; grace me with your clear revelation.
I choose the true road to Somewhere, I post your road signs at every curve and corner.
I grasp and cling to whatever you tell me; God, don't let me down!
I'll run the course you lay out for me if you'll just show me how.
God, teach me lessons for living so I can stay the course.
Give me insight so I can do what you tell me - my whole life one long, obedient response.
Guide me down the road of your commandments; I love traveling this freeway!
Give me a bent for your words of wisdom, and not for piling up loot.
Divert my eyes from toys and trinkets, invigorate me on the pilgrim way.
Affirm your promises to me - promises made to all who fear you.
Deflect the harsh words of my critics - but what you say is always so good.
A Snake and a woman. This short story has a happy ending.
Reshma Didi told me that she discovered a snake in her kitchen this morning
Before the sun rose.
It was more than a meter long.
Scared and startled in equal parts, she knew it carried no venom.
Still waking to a snake eating carrots in the food locker is unsettling.
She coaxed it into a bag and released it in the forest
Far from the house.
Our story of the blessed garden invaded by a snake
Metaphysical question, predictable answer equals eternal condemnation.
Lying and subterfuge
Condemn us to listen this devil story forever
We believe.
There is a small snake temple in Bhagsunag.
The captive serpent is fat and lazy
Plus Baba has defanged him so that
There is no real danger to his devotees.
I have not witnessed the charming, but I think that
It is not deaf to priestly incantations.
This Song of David and the damn snake may not make the world an evil place
But there is little room for making them into
Family pets. That’s universal.
Go release your snakes in the forest as far from the kitchen as you can.
Be careful. Change the course of Western civilization.
God Judges the Earth, Psalm 58 King James Version
{To the chief Musician, Altaschith, Michtam of David.} Do ye indeed speak righteousness, O congregation? do ye judge uprightly, O ye sons of men?
Yea, in heart ye work wickedness; ye weigh the violence of your hands in the earth.
The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.
Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear;
Which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely
Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth: break out the great teeth of the young lions, O LORD.
Let them melt away as waters which run continually: when he bendeth his bow to shoot his arrows, let them be as cut in pieces.
As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away: like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun.
Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath.
The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.
So that a man shall say, Verily there is a reward for the righteous: verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth.
On Being Mauled by a bear
Last winter
The bears came down
Below the snow line.
They were hungry.
Word got out that they were four,
One with cubs.
What went through these women’s minds
when the bear lunged at their face.
They also had a right to go about their business.
I wonder.
Astonished.
I ask myself if I would be brave.
One who lived is a friend of my cook’s wife.
She was up at the well early
To pump water for the day.
She claimed to have put up a fight.
The village was proud.
The strong survival reflex of these mountains.
The Tibetan woman on the kora was not so lucky.
The Dalai Lama should have sent a representative to her cremation.
Her holy work was his.
The bears are back up in the mountains where they should be
Now we just contend with rain and flooding.
Thou makest darkness, and it is night: wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth.
The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God.
The sun ariseth, they gather themselves together, and lay them down in their dens.
Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour until the evening..Psalm 104: 20-23
Thy word is like a heat seeking missile
“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.”
Psalm 119:105
Are words paintbrushes or missiles?
In the hands of a poet, scientist, warlord or propagandist
The same word can kill or be a lullaby.
Take the word love,
Misuse it at your peril.
Count bodies on the battlefield
Myriads
Thy words
Hold words with care
Knowing that they can be weapons
Knowing that they will be weapons
When you cross swords
As you will
It's certain
Cradle words
That will fly
Into the heart of
Your lover
Sing them
Croon words
Into a baby’s ear
With your own voice
Don’t wait for angels
Chant words
With your own breath while you can
At least one word one breath
It will cease
Ponder words
Even in a nasty wrapping
Leave words alone
To do their own work
Without you
Rip up words that
Prop open a door
Onto some landscape
That needs to fade away
Erase words
Spoken in anger
Or remember them
Until they lose their sting
Check words
That have many translations
Which may very slightly
Or even a lot
Even for you
Be generous
The Highway to Zion washed away last night
“Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion.”
Psalm 84:5
There are two roads to my house,
But only one that people take.
In 12 years I’ve taken
The road that loops through the army base
On the other side of the ridge,
12 times.
I don’t even think about the road
That winds straight up the hill.
It’s just there.
Then it wasn’t.
I woke up yesterday when Parveen called me to say
Our road had washed down the hill
All of it.
No more buses with kids coming back from school
No more taxis packing weekenders from the bus station
No trips to bank & grocery
For a few Western items
We wonder how long before it will
Be repaired. Rebuilt actually.
A tall retaining wall
To support the weight of concrete against the
Steep ravine.
My Tibetan painter friend Tenrab says
Two months.
His Holiness rides the road
He is old and can’t die while they wait
For concrete forms to set
And dry
It is the Road to Zion.
He might die. He knows he will..
I say six months
Even working through the cold of winter.
Even for the Road to Zion.
It was there.
Now it’s not.
Hath God forgotten to be gracious?
Will the Lord walk off and leave us for good? Will he never smile again? Is his love worn threadbare? Has his salvation promise burned out? Has God forgotten his manners? Has he angrily stomped off and left us? “Just my luck,” I said. “The High God retires just the moment I need him.” Psalms 77:7-10 The Message (MSG)
When Sonam Rinchen lectured on Shantideva
He sprinkled
Stories of his flight into exile
Freedom is freedom.
Geshe-la told us about his extreme acrophobia
Hanging from the cliffs as they crossed the Himalayas.
Knowing that the Chinese were close behind
They had to keep going.
He closed his eyes
And with his fingers
Felt for the stone
Beyond the bridge.
He said matter of factly
After long months in Tenzingang
Several Tibetans took their own lives
Tibetans never commit suicide
But they did.
“The High God retires just the moment I need him.”
It makes no difference that your mother or your lama has
Taught you to smile and be gracious
The favor is not necessarily returned.
Ruth didn't want to translate fire and brimstone
Geshe-la insisted
He’d tread a treacherous mountain path
To the camp in Assam
He felt competent to talk about hell
He’d tasted freedom.
Give up all hope until you can't!
Psalm 121
I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.
My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.
He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber.
Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.
The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.
The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul.
The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore. King James Version
Give up all hope.
Then you can't!
They sang this song
While they carted her body through the streets of London
Not a hill in sight.
In reality not one foot was moved.
Shade, smite, preserve
Persevere.
Not today, not the moon
There is no safety.
At least in coming and going
We have common ground.
An Exegesis on the Blackness of the Night
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you. (Psalm 139: 11-12)
I grew up in the country
But even in rural Connecticut
There were lampposts
Every hundred yards.
They kept us safe from
Hidden dangers.
Perhaps a wandering cow
Or a drunken suburban dad struggling to find his door.
There’s always something to hide
And something to be redeemed
Protect the stray dog.
Here in Jogiwara
Night is night
Black is black.
Our very dark sky is just black
Sometimes te moon appears clean and fresh
Sometimes it’s hidden behind clouds.
When we need to light the rocky path
We carry a big flashlight
And hope that the batteries are charged.
Was it was easier before the miracle of
Electric power?
My Aunt Judy loved her job at United Illuminating.
She said the hardest task ever
Was when she rang the doorbell at dusk
To tell his family that their son, brother, husband
Had died touching a hot wire that
Dangled on the country road.
There was no hiding.
O Captain, my Captain
On the occasion of the Long Life Puja offered by the Indian disciples of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, September 7th 2022
Psalm 56:8
Alex loves Tibet like Whitman loved the Union.
Close to adoration
The practice came at just the right moment.
It usually does.
O Captain, my Captain
Is a man who lives in a nearby house
And loves his dogs.
“Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?”
It’s a tenuous journey
“You have delivered me from death and my feet from stumbling.”
The Psalmist has put his left foot first.
If at the end of the Path you step into a life
Other than the one you have,
That mistake seems inevitable.
Indra’s Net of Jewels Catches a Spider
“who commanded, or prepared a spider, to perfect in the mouth of the cave a web for me;'' Targum commentary of Psalm 57*
Indra’s net of jewels catches a spider
What shape is this?
A vast multi cornered trapezoid
Depends entirely on whim
Or a design we cannot fathom.
Buddhists with their ineluctable cause and effect
Want to have one step follow another
Like the Gelugpa monk chasing down the cause
To trap an imaginary opponent into adhering to the Way.
The spider’s web is just a catcher.
Indra’s jewels, nestled in the junctures
Signal being
Gracefully caught in the fullness of life.
David’s Master of Song
Plays a cat and mouse tune,
Allusion and deception
Coupled with G_d’s grace to save the day.
Traps for heady Jews
Who try to sit quietly and contemplate
The tight web artfully strung between the rocks.
This song does require a few notes:
*The rabbins tell a curious and instructive tale concerning this: "God sent a spider to weave her web at the mouth of the cave in which David and his men lay hid. When Saul saw the spider's web over the cave's mouth, he very naturally conjectured that it could neither be the haunt of men nor wild beasts; and therefore went in with confidence to repose."The Targum curiously paraphrases this clause: [from Psalm 57 v2] "Who ordered the spider that wrought the web, on my account, at the mouth of the cave;" applying a later historical fact, which, however, may have had its prototype
Dredging up Buddha from the Yangtze
The idols of the nations are silver and gold, made by human hands.
They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see.
They have ears, but cannot hear, nor is there breath in their mouths.
Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them.
Psalm 135:15-18
A seated monk emerged covered in mud
Not silver or gold
Fourth or fifth century
Old, but not dusted off from Deer Park.
His appearance seems like an oracle
Or the answer to the question posed to the Ouija board.
Tinkering with water and deserts
The reservoir was made by human toil.
David’s Master of Song sounds like
A Buddhist sage: “mouths that cannot speak, eyes that cannot see,
Ears that cannot hear.
But is he right or wrong
About no breath in their months?
Yes the Statue is very dead,
But the Psalmist wished it weren’t so.
He loves a living God.
The only part I really like is that the Buddha was covered in mud.
But my liking is liking that does not like.
Notes:
The recent drought has revealed a trio of Buddhist statues on it that are believed to be 600 years old, state media Xinhua has reported. Three Gorges Dam is 578 km from Chongqing, more than a 6 hour drive. 181 m (594 ft) high, holding back thousands of liters of water of the Yangtze. It is an engineering feat. It also displaced at least 1.3 million people and destroyed natural features as well as countless rare architectural and archaeological sites. The dam’s reservoir is blamed for an increase in the number of landslides and earthquakes in the region.And At Evening, Let Them Return
They return at evening: they make a noise like a dog, and go round about the city.
Behold, they belch out with their mouth: swords are in their lips: for who, say they, doth hear? Psalm 59: 6-7
Is Right speech easy or smooth?
Next door they complain about the howling dog.
Hari’s daughter ties her up during the day.
Other neighbors complain.
It is tough to hear.
Dogs are pack animals.
Early this morning Baba
Paraded through the village to
A cacophonous drum beat.
He and his friends were
Carrying Durga Mata
On their shoulders.
Blessing rounds and begging rounds.
All the dogs bark, not at all in unison.
Difficult for words to match a tune. Always.
It grows dark now and barking has died out.
However, it’s wedding season
And the loud heavy beats drift up from the lower village.
I opted for the vegetarian menu
Psalm 66:10-16
For thou, O God, hast proved us: thou hast tried us, as silver is tried.
Thou broughtest us into the net; thou laidst affliction upon our loins.
Thou hast caused men to ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water: but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place.
I will go into thy house with burnt offerings: I will pay thee my vows,
Which my lips have uttered, and my mouth hath spoken, when I was in trouble.
I will offer unto thee burnt sacrifices of fatlings, with the incense of rams; I will offer bullocks with goats. Selah.
Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will declare what he hath done for my soul.
The priest was tall, almost elegant, slim,
Standing tall the full length of his spine,
With a distinguished touch of gray in his beard.
Gestures and smile to match.
He looked almost a bishop with a bright red robe,
Quite unlike most of the other Nepali men I’d met.
Rama told us to remain inside
For the puja. She sounded rather mysterious.
It was early. The new sun cast
Long shadows across the yard
Close to the chicken coop.
Wooden table draped in white plastic
Fire growling in a pit.
All ordered by her order.
I heard the cry of the animal.
It took me to the window
To watch his feet be tied,
Kicking hind legs immobilized,
Then laid against the plastic covered table
And a swift knife.
It was over quickly.
He was hung by the rope that had made him an easy victim.
His blood draining into a pink plastic pail.
An acolyte in a white apron
Finished preparing him for the fire.
The Tibetans made it illegal to kill so close to His Holiness
Even with holy intent.
What I had witnessed was technically a crime, but it seemed
Quite ordinary for first century Jerusalem.
I was complicit.
The immediate cause of the trouble requiring expiation
Was my friend Carter,
The handsome ethnobotanist
With a collection of insect eating plants.
He’d trapped
Pinguicula, Drosera, Dionaea and Sarracenia,
Fancy names for tricking insects into their poison pantry.
Not to sound too exotic--
He just walked into a shop in Chandigarh, and paid rupees,
But still it’s the most exotic thread in this tale.
He complained about the washroom. It always smelled of shit.
There was a fight. He was expelled. I was never to mention
The name Carter.
The Venus fly trap would have to kill flies in the washroom of a hostel below
Where Temple Road meets another path down to Dasha.
Roaming the meat department at Safeway
The difference in price on the tags pasted onto
The plastic wrap of meat laid out on the white plastic
Trays belie that the animal once lived.
But little other evidence remains of
Its cries.
When the feast was laid out after the puja
I noticed that there was still singed hair on the skin
Of the legs that I’d seen kicking at the end.
I opted for the vegetarian menu.
"De profundis”
Psalm 130
This “song of ascents” is usually sung at funerals.
They say it was instantaneous
No one ever says exactly how he died.
It happened just about the same time
As we were driving home from dinner.
They also say that his cousin who drove the two-wheeler was drunk.
That boy lay for days unconscious in the hospital.
No one knows the truth. No one ever will.
No one will blame him openly. That is just not done.
Rumors in our small community
As ordinary as death and being late for work.
Our driver was also high. We left him in the driver’s hut while we ate.
It was festival time.
Together with my friend Kumar,
I head to the village to attend
The rituals of death.
They are not foreign at all,
Though the trappings are.
He died on Friday
It was Holy Week.
Just to be there is enough.
It has to be.
Forget religion.
It is all we can do.
In a darkened room, the women sit with his mother.
They hardly move. No one speaks. No one can.
I know trauma. I watch with my heart.
I bow towards the shrine in a dark corner
With his picture, some flowers.
He was just a teenager.
I turn and bow to his father,
He is the brother and uncle of several of the men
Who do work for me.
I am connected.
Tears came to my eyes.
Of course mercy, of course forgiveness,
But you, songster, get closest to the truth
When you pray the difficult prayer for hope.
Hope is difficult.
My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning,
More than watchmen wait for the morning.
Psalm 130
Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord;
O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy.
If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared.
I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.
My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.
O Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption.
He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins.
Put Me to Confusion
"Let me never be put to confusion".
“In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust: let me never be put to confusion. . . . .Now also when I am old and greyheaded, O God, forsake me not; until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation, and thy power to every one that is to come.
Psalm 71
I will sing a contrary song:
Put me to confusion,
Even my old grayhead,
Go ahead, do it.
Or I will sow a seed of doubt myself.
Relying on the stability of
An uncertain stance.
Is far too comfortable
Even given my age
And lack of balance,
Doubt is just more honest.
Even though I might fall.
Let’s look at a few of the points
Pushed by your songster.
You did not take me out of my mother’s “bowels.”
Pure folly.
I prefer Dr. Spock although my mother was not a fan.
She was always searching for
For the traces of
Some invisible guiding hand
Which always remained beyond her grasp.
His name was Doctor Mack.
You didn’t teach me from my youth.
The Jesuits did that, and
Though they like to think of themselves
As the agents of the Most High,
They rely too much on Ovid and Cicero
To claim pure Yahweh lineage.
Of course you abandon the old and frail.
If you didn’t there’d be no complaint.
Don’t feed me that tired old line about
Self-reliance when all resources
Are depleted.
Unless you are really Ayn Rand in drag.
A professor of leave-things-alone
Is rampaging in the living room, leaving a mess.
I will look for evidence of course
But most times it is not even
Necessary, is it?
You said it and believe
So it is suspect.
I will only listen to the professor of leave-things-as-they-is.
Who am I to show your power?
You can and should do your job
If you even can.
I will not do it for you.
I will not apologize.
Bablu Called in Tears
Psalm 34:18. The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Psalm 147:3, He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.
Bablu called
in tears.
I could see tears.
in his voice.
I could feel raw pain
If he were as near
as the palm of my hand.
I would have
Tried to hold him
His mother died
in the night.
Who can bind up his heart?
Father killed,
Perhaps murdered.
Now his mother is also gone.
He brought tea in the morning
To her lifeless body.
She had complained of sharp pain.
Her left shoulder had gone numb.
They took her to the
Ayurvedic doctor.
She would not go to the hospital.
Now her boys and her grandchildren
Have a hole in their hearts.
Pain and suffering
Are not democratic.
Not everyone gets to vote.
Prose & Poem at Jimmy’s
The life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field;
the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.
Psalm 103: 15-16
The time and place for different kinds of speaking and singing.
It was mid-afternoon when Tara & I started uphill towards Jimmy’s up more steep stairs to the second floor efforts just to be there. More for four poet-activists, exiles and immigrants, reading Tibetan and English side by side. In India English always for subtitles. Could almost be mistaken as native Americans forced onto reservations or indigenous peoples of South corralled into reductiones by my Jesuits. Viewing like a Daguerreotype Dominant culture invades, steals land and resources. The extermination begins. I want to cry.
Tibetans have the upperhand capturing world attention through the charism of their Dalai Lama. Rigorous Buddhism written and practiced for centuries is perhaps more sophisticated than "Black Elk Speaks," but the soft sounds of the Tibetan language; one young woman read as moving as Buffy Saint Marie. Just sounds. A man whose poem "Just Shut Up" lyrical, spiritual, fiery. Our Tibetan Bob Dylan sang a song he wrote, and then sang another with a man who’d never performed in public before.
These gentle people’s fate still and always precarious. Spoke with several afterwards but kept my mouth shut about death and dying. They are aware of peril, but there is a time and place for different kinds of speaking.
You are not the first
Nor will you be the last proud culture
Devoured by a conquering army.
You know it.
The wounds smart.
No sauve of time
To gently erode hard memories
No fading into myth
Not yet
Though that process has begun.
Humankind survives.
At least for now.
Sing like there’s no tomorrow.
How I rejoiced when I heard we were going to go to the house of the Lord
Line Up
Determined to hear
True Teaching.
I’d come all this way.
Firstly I go to the Security Office
On the Road to Bhagsunag.
About 60 foreigners at the door.
Though orderly
I take a number and wait.
They check my passport,
Run it through the computer--
Pass.
Copied in triplicate
I get the badge of salvation
Or at least an entrance pass.
There’s a service charge.
Line One.
I push my way through the crowd
Down Temple Road
Everyone rushes.
He always starts on time.
Jammed up at the Temple Gate
People crush and shove.
The entrance to Heaven is
Nameless and rude.
It’s India.
The turnstile admits one by one
Forcing order.
Line Two can finally be called a line.
I rent a transistor radio
With earphones
Simultaneous translation,
Mother tongue,
Hindi and Chinese as well
Will the batteries last?
Always questions.
Will I even understand the questions?
Another queue.
More rupees
For charity this time.
Waiting for my change to be counted
Line Three.
We slow to single file
For the metal detector
And pat down.
Pockets out.
Men to one side. Women behind.
Monks, nuns, no exceptions.
No smiling.
So close to intimacy
It becomes impersonal.
Line Four takes time.
I search the lawn for a spot to sit
Among Tibetan families
Spread out on blankets.
Kids play with cricket cards of
Muslim players
No line of demarcation here
But the monks higher up sit in
Neat color coded rows
In strange orange hats.
Feathered mohawks in my mind.
We wait for their chanting to end.
Boredom joins
Line Five.
The steps up the throne are few
But steep.
Other hands lift and guide.
That’s universal.
It seems treacherous
The wonder of falling down.
Behind the constant appeal for prayer,
Fear is universal.
It’s a textual analysis
Only slightly dumbed down
To include spousal bedroom fights
Like an Irish pastor
Not missing a chance
To hit the heart of the matter..
Line Six is a convoluted argument.
Salty Butter Tea
Must be an acquired taste.
Monks fill our cups
I know this is not
Something I can refuse
Even though my gut reaction is
To spit it out.
It tastes like piss.
I sit and wait to hold up my cup
For just enough to
Satisfy the bare minimum to be polite.
The boy monk doesn’t care
What I want.
It’s not personal. He’s just sloppy.
Line Seven spills over.
Stomachs growl,
It’s also his lunch time
No tiffins for convenience.
Uniformed guards from the
Indian Army come to attention
And present arms.
The admonition about arguing
In the bedroom requires
The presence of automatic weapons
And live ammunition.
India under threat from the PRC,
That is a dangerous route.
They guide his way to the lower level.
Line Eight is armed and lethal.
Why an SUV to drive
20 meters to his door?
No crush of crowd.
A smile and a wave
Satisfy the superstitious ritual
To greet and bless.
His stomach must be growling.
Line Nine says it’s over.
We stand up to leave.
The work of religion is done.
The final Line is a prayer
To be delivered from it all.
Today is the end of religion's work--
Go back, all of you, to your homes.
I leave before you,
Eastward or westward,
Wherever the wind might carry me.
--Tōsui Unkei
Psalm 122, King James Version
I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord.
Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem.
Jerusalem is builded as a city that is compact together:
Whither the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, unto the testimony of Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the Lord.
For there are set thrones of judgment, the thrones of the house of David.
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee.
Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces.
For my brethren and companions' sakes, I will now say, Peace be within thee.
Because of the house of the Lord our God I will seek thy good.
Saying Yes in the Darkness
I searched online for a reference
Psalms saying “Yes”
I found a course for 17.99 USD
That promised Yes to G_d
In seven weeks
Using a formula
Magic costs
I said No.
Saying Yes in the Darkness
Involves saying
Yes to the dark gods
In no particular order
Yes to murder and assassination
Yes to vengeance
Yes to bankruptcy
Yes to making an enemy’s innocent wife a widow
Yes to leaving his children homeless
Yes to condemning them to being denied compassion
The rotten sons of bitches
Leave no stone unturned.
I was worried that my songs
Have been too much about all the death
Around us in our small village
But that is saying Yes
Yes, saying yes in the darkness.
We don’t need armies to do the killing
Life exacts a toll before we can even take out our weapons.
We don’t need to hear G_d’s voice
To know whether we’re right or wrong.
Shaken, thin and wounded
I know who is poor and needy.
It is me.
You, O G_d, don’t need to say a word.
I will say
Yes to lovers
Yes to arguments
Yes to cancer
Yes to heart attacks
Yes to dementia
Yes to being attacked
Yes to dying while young
Yes to my own dying
Yes to love.
For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me.
I fade away like an evening shadow; I am shaken off like a locust.
My knees give way from fasting; my body is thin and gaunt.
I am an object of scorn to my accusers; when they see me, they shake their heads.
Help me, Lord my God; save me according to your unfailing love.
Let them know that it is your hand, that you, Lord, have done it.
Psalm 109: 22-27
Monsoon should be over!
From Psalm 107:24-30
These see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep.
For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof.
They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble.
They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit's end.
Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses.
He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.
Then are they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired haven.
Before forever,
Before the TV weather man or woman,
We relied on the pslamster to tell us
What was afoot with the sky god.
Staggering like a drunk,
He made up in poetry
What he lacked in science.
He also pretended. Poor us.
But we cannot blame the Psalmster
Or a Weather personality.
We are not reliable soothsayers.
All of us none of us.
Yesterday was half September,
Every reliable baba
From my cleaning lady to Harsh the taxi driver
Said that the sun would shine.
They were wrong.
The stormy wind and rain continue to
Drain the spending power of the rupee.
The Hinduvata tries to calm the storm
But their gods prove powerless,
But continue to demand allegiance.
More.
That the spell has not succeeded is never the fault of the gods
But we the people who pray and pay were not good enough.
Our impossible task.
There is no port or haven.
There is no calm, at least not yet
And it will not last.
We are unmoored.
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