Maharaj Kaul
Between the morning’s beckoning
To action to the evening ‘s relief at the survival
From the daylong wrestling with the world
Lie corpses of a million dreams,
Mutilated states of a billion half-dead hopes.
The crushing vortex of the daily life
Has shred the spirit of life into smithereens.
The inner poetry and order incubating long
Want to control the stage
But survival takes the upper hand
And there is no time for the spirit to dance.
The pink dogwood flowering tree
Has nearly touched my 2nd Fl. study window sill,
Tempting me to pluck a ravishing blossom
And embrace it with abandon.
The brook contouring our backyard
Is hosting the migrant Canadian geese,
Who are floating with majestic ease.
I should mingle with the elements of nature
And feel the magic of its impulse.
But I can not do so as I have no time.
Mind has its brilliant logical constructs
And heart has its exquisite emotions
But it is the combination of the two
That produces moving art.
A DiVinci, a Rembrandt, a Picasso,
Is a prophet of life,
For he practices a creative impulse
And lives in blissful harmony.
But to find them in yourself
And to bring them to life
Needs work and time,
But there is no time.
The very ill and the destitute,
The victims of social injustice,
The crushed and suppressed by political tyrannies
Punctuate the human landscape.
Their agony and helplessness
Challenge our minds and drill holes in our hearts,
Beckoning us to repair and rehabilitate them.
The heart of the humanity is large
And we have the wherewithals for the work,
But we do not have the time.
Our bookshelves are brimming
With elegant works on
Poetry, fiction, biography, and history:
Works of fecund and artistic minds,
Bearing a lifetime of work.
Here is a garden of roses,
Magisterial and seductive,
A feast we can not refuse,
But our busy lives do not afford us
The time to absorb the experience.
Our relatives and friends are the
Flowers in the garden of our experience,
The rainbows in our skies.
But the technology age
Has dented the hub
That holds us together:
We have the strong feelings to be with them
But we do not have the time to do that.
The world is a minefield of
Religious, racial, and social tensions,
Which can blast anytime.
Our streets are still moist with blood
And our guns smell of the last fired bullet.
Bigotry and violence rule the world.
Come let us turn the tide
And restore god’s work to its original design:
Blissful, tranquil, pristine, seamless.
But alas there is no time.
In the beginning God required
Man to work, pray, and love;
Eons later man invented commerce, politics, and technology;
Ego and greed followed incrementally.
Man wants to make more money to be happier
But by first trampling on the happiness he already has
And then shutting doors on grander and more durable happiness.
Technology has abetted man in his greed
And swollen his head to ignore god’s work,
Leaving him little time.
Now human life is remote from god’s vision.
It has lost its spiritual magic
And has become a thing,
A badge-number, a commodity, and a contract,
Negotiable at a material value.
Our spirit has turned to a stained mosaic,
A broken symphony.
God’s tapestry needs restorative work.
We can open the doors of
Religion, reason, and art to do that
But there is no time.
