BEING

Abstract: This poem is about spiritually surviving extreme adversity, including losses of family, limbs, health, and even the imminent loss of one's own life, as so many have to do, with faith in all that is good, recognizing all that is evil, and understanding that both are in all beings. One way to do this is by reducing oneself to the essence of being, accepting what the moment brings.

By Arjun Janah

Within the madness of the world we’re in,

The smiles and silences remain serene,

Reminding us of petals and of peace.

Amidst the clamor of the marketplace,

And all the thunder of the zones of war,

Are sounds as soft as in a lover’s sigh.

******

To doubt is human, given loss of sight.

And even hope, like all of life, can die.

How hard, the truth! How easy still the lie!

In all our aspects, there is kind-and-harsh.

So good and evil always coexist

In every being and throughout the world.

******

As cruelty and cowardice compete,

There still is courage and the caring heart.

The stench of greed, the scent of sacrifice—

They both exist and do so side by side.

Amidst despair and darkness, still there’s light.

We cherish it, as thousands lose their lives.

******

How slick the evil are with practiced lies!

They do the devils’ work but speak of gods.

They spin, as comforts, dank and dark cocoons.

******

How much of torture and of pain and grief?

How much of blindness that is past belief?

These all exist—as does the quiet faith

That turns from malice, answers hate with love.

We'll never change the ones who will not see.

In dying, as in life, we still can be

In touch with silence, being touched by grace,

With every torture still as ours to face

In deepest stillness, with the firmest faith.

******

Within the madness of the world we’re in,

The smiles and silences remain serene,

Reminding us of petals and of peace.

Amidst the clamor of the marketplace

And all the thunder of the zones of war

Are sounds as soft as in a lover’s sigh.

Monday, September 15, 2025

Berkeley, California.

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Arjun Janah is a retired New York City public school science teacher who grew up in Kolkata and studied in Delhi. In the summer of 1971, he spent a few weeks in a refugee camp in Bongaon, West Bengal, and this experience began to shape many of his views. He went to the USA in 1975 to do his doctorate in physics, and has remained there for family reasons. He had been active in his teacher's union in New York. Arjun’s mother, Sobha, was a research scientist and a physician. His father, Sunil, was a documentary photographer. His late sister, Monua, was a journalist. He is married to another immigrant, Wai Sin, from Hong Kong, China, who still works in his last school. They have no children. He began to find some solace through writing poems in the 2000s. He has been stuck for almost three years in Berkeley, California, but his permanent residence is in Brooklyn, New York. Arjun has been following the events in Palestine for a long time and many of his writings over the past two years have had to do with those. More of his poems can be found at: https://thedailypoet.blogspot.com