Thursday, May 29, 2014

The Ghost of John Donne

Have you heard,
How I fell in love once,
With a girl in my ancient youth?

But is she true to our memory,
In heaven's embrace?

Does she speak fondly of us,
Now in angelic repose,
While I roam in our lodging place,
Where she never goes?

I will write a hundred verses
To remember you,
In dust upon this wooden floor,
In grain and paint that peels around me.

I will scratch a thousand sonnets
To honor love,
And wait behind this broken door,
And wait for you,
Where you burned your life away,
Five hundred years before.

Have you heard,
How I fell in love once,
With a girl in my ancient youth?

The song is here.




Saturday, May 3, 2014

Requited

Krishna said, "Vishvamitra, you weren’t born to punish the wicked, though the wicked have been punished by your hand. Nor were you born to reward the righteous, though you’ve bestowed treasures upon the righteous. Yet if you refrained from punishment and reward, still the wicked and the righteous are fully requited. Holding to this truth with unflinching certainty, you may rise above all bonds of action and desire, and you may yet be detached from the world and the things of this world. Harmed by none, and doing no harm by thought or act, there is contentment here. The way of man and the way of God are different ways. Do not take the road that isn’t yours to take."

This dawned on me a few days ago, that anger at injustice is still anger; and I knew at that moment that the one who practices injustice is punished, though we may not perceive the manner in which this punishment, in proportion to the crime, is delivered. Moreover, it isn't our place to know or ever to ask, for whether one believes in a cosmos that forever seeks balance, or in a God who treasures justice, the only path is detachment from anger, and contentment in repose, even if "the swords of the enemies rain blows upon thee, and all the heavens and the earth rise up against thee."