I will post one poem every week of April, each on a different topic I care about: #ClimateChange, #Immigration, #GunViolence, #Poverty, and a bonus on #Genomics. I invite you to do the same.
Eliot's poem, The Waste Land, from which the lines, "April is the cruelest month" come, ends:
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
Shantih shantih shantih
You may be familiar with these terms if you practice or have studied Hinduism and/or Buddhism. I haven't, but when I first read the poem in my "formative years," I looked them up, and then followed the threads to Buddhism and flirted with becoming a monk. Unfortunately, I was not permitted to wear a robe and sandals in the military, so abandoned that flirtation, and instead focused my amorous attentions on a pretty Air Force nurse who was tending to my ills. That led to a sudden profusion of love poems, too embarrassing to publish.
In this time of Trump, I hope for you,
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata
Shantih
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
Shantih shantih shantih
You may be familiar with these terms if you practice or have studied Hinduism and/or Buddhism. I haven't, but when I first read the poem in my "formative years," I looked them up, and then followed the threads to Buddhism and flirted with becoming a monk. Unfortunately, I was not permitted to wear a robe and sandals in the military, so abandoned that flirtation, and instead focused my amorous attentions on a pretty Air Force nurse who was tending to my ills. That led to a sudden profusion of love poems, too embarrassing to publish.
In this time of Trump, I hope for you,
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata
Shantih
