By Arjun Janah in The Daily Poet
Whatever be your credo or belief,
At times, you’ll need some solace, some relief,
For that, on which you based your hopes and dreams,
Might be, in time, your aspiration?s thief.
For who can live for long without a loss,
Or never, racked and torn, tormented, toss?
Whenever we may think we?ve mastered life,
It turns and swiftly shows us who?s the boss.
The very things for which we?ve labored, fought,
Have focused on and all the rest forgot,
Those things, as life unwinds, may turn to dust,
And all our strivings then be set to naught.
And what remains, when all appears amiss,
When we, who?ve labored long, are still remiss?
Remember then, there still remains the dawn,
And in the darkness, smile and blow a kiss.
And when a faker, in a tie and suit,
Demands accounting, in his mad pursuit,
Then bow and hand to him a chit, on which
It says, ?We?ve quit the race, so all is moot.?
For when our life?s account is drawn and closed,
Then what remains, of all we once supposed
Was worth the life we offered as its price?
?This question,? we are told, ?is poorly posed.?
What then remains is still the work we did,
Though this, with time, will be in cobwebs hid ?
But more than that, and lasting still a while,
The love we offered, though we weren?t bid.
Though falsehoods live, while truth appears to die,
And most accede, and few still question why,
And though the cause appears as hopeless, still
The truth remains the truth, and not the lie.
Let all coercion and compulsion be
Dissolved by that, which lives within a tree
And makes its branches, in the sun, delight,
That joy that makes us each, for a moment, free.
So in the valley deep of sorrows, sigh,
But never, to your courage, say, ?Goodbye.?
There lives, in us, the stillness and the fire,
And these will live, though you and I will die.
2013 December 6th, Fri.
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn
At times, you’ll need some solace, some relief,
For that, on which you based your hopes and dreams,
Might be, in time, your aspiration?s thief.
For who can live for long without a loss,
Or never, racked and torn, tormented, toss?
Whenever we may think we?ve mastered life,
It turns and swiftly shows us who?s the boss.
The very things for which we?ve labored, fought,
Have focused on and all the rest forgot,
Those things, as life unwinds, may turn to dust,
And all our strivings then be set to naught.
And what remains, when all appears amiss,
When we, who?ve labored long, are still remiss?
Remember then, there still remains the dawn,
And in the darkness, smile and blow a kiss.
And when a faker, in a tie and suit,
Demands accounting, in his mad pursuit,
Then bow and hand to him a chit, on which
It says, ?We?ve quit the race, so all is moot.?
For when our life?s account is drawn and closed,
Then what remains, of all we once supposed
Was worth the life we offered as its price?
?This question,? we are told, ?is poorly posed.?
What then remains is still the work we did,
Though this, with time, will be in cobwebs hid ?
But more than that, and lasting still a while,
The love we offered, though we weren?t bid.
Though falsehoods live, while truth appears to die,
And most accede, and few still question why,
And though the cause appears as hopeless, still
The truth remains the truth, and not the lie.
Let all coercion and compulsion be
Dissolved by that, which lives within a tree
And makes its branches, in the sun, delight,
That joy that makes us each, for a moment, free.
So in the valley deep of sorrows, sigh,
But never, to your courage, say, ?Goodbye.?
There lives, in us, the stillness and the fire,
And these will live, though you and I will die.
2013 December 6th, Fri.
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn
Ed: Arjun is the son of the legendary Indian photographer Sunil Janah. That was how I got to know him, but of course he has his own identity. He is a teacher in New York.
Thank you for posting this, Shahidul. After my first posting of it on my poetry blog, I changed the word “makes” in the third line of the penultimate stanza to “lets”. So it now reads:
Let all coercion and compulsion be
Dissolved by that, which lives within a tree
And lets its branches, in the sun, delight,
That joy that makes us each, for a moment, free.
Read more: http://www.shahidulnews.com/what-still-remains#ixzz2nE5DxmqM
Dear Arjun,
Sorry, we’ve been inundated. Will attend to this.
It’s a trivial matter. The comment I left earlier would have been sufficient. But many thanks anyway.