Touching Mangos

In the Mango Trees, untouchable fruits languish

In the full Sun branches bear out of its seasons

Thick limbs bow, fall low, touching among those gathered

Shed hungry tears, that endless seek the restless ground

Would the fog descend and show the veils that hide

The untrue heart, the wanton spirit that assumes

The power to destroy that which it could never create

Life is the richest pearl, and here devoured by lowest beasts.

It chokes air from the lips, and the power of grief

Stays within, coiled like a deadly viper sting

In this land of ancient love, consumed by petty thoughts

That yet control so much, and castes like the worm’s way

Weaken the bond of human to human…

In the Mango trees, undisturbed by the sun and wind

Unblinking eyes regard the stillness of the living world

To behold the essence of breath…the bearer of an unchanged past

and a bitter seed that we must all taste, as we are

to deeply know the sweetness of  tomorrow;

In the Mango Trees, untouchable fruits languish.

Author’s Note

In India and Pakistan, rape of young women has reached alarming and epidemic proportions. These attacks often committed by groups of men have caused deaths and emotional suffering among victims and families, and an erosion of vital human rights of women in both countries. In one recent attack, two young women were found hanged  in a Mango tree. In the caste system they were regarded as untouchables.  It is the hope of this writing that awareness and opposition to these conditions will spread and cause change. The women of these nations have raised voice and outrage and the rest of the world should follow and add its weight, for as long as justice and dignity are denied to these women, it is denied to all.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2645231/Teen-Indian-girls-raped-murdered-left-hanging-mango-tree-pictured.html
 

City in Spring

Rolling towards the broad avenue
in bright sun the neighborhood renews
its old pledge to see a better year than last.
So much in the past belongs to regret
and wet-eyed promises to forget and build anew;
there is a spring of the spirit too.

The tires dip into a crevice
born of winter ice seems thrice
the time winter spent  to springs short lease.
All the shivered cries, hopes for arctic release,
words etched into short term pain, polar vortex
the bane of Great Lakes still ice covered some,
as the Arctic melts away.

City in Spring, robins sing, black Squirrels-
like thugs in dark hoods- seem more intent
to breach window screens and nest in attics;
gnawing  like insatiable demon-kind
arousing expletives from little church-lady lips,
they chop the tops from her flower beds.

Yet it is spring, long awaited short-lived warmth
cold-felt memories melt in heat of a friendlier sun
and once again we think of the price of gain, and
why there is no thaw in the vicious maws of greed.
Burn, burn more oil than we could ever need, given
the green side of wind and light; so we wait still

for Spring in the City is a job that pays
all who lift the boat against the downward tide-
the tried and proved path to ruin.
It is there in our hands, hope and prosperity-
spring that is unbounded, generous and for All.

Spring when we value the things...that make new life