Lamentations for Ice and Snow

Lamentations for ice and snow are not enough. There are so many, including writers, who lament the passing away of snow and ice on mountains, the fast melting and disappearance of icebergs and the disappearance of Polar bears. The other day I read about the disappearance of the snows of Kilimanjaro; a timely but too late article for the fast receding snow and ice on Africa’s highest peak. This article by MG Vasanji got me thinking that all this is due to the greed of a people gone mad, wanting to possess every legitimate and illegitimate material object available on this planet. But MG misses a greater lament.

Lamentations for disappearance of ice and snow are fine, but our observations of late have become soul-less. In all this material greed and pursuit of physical comfort, we have overlooked the disappearance of the diversity of humans on the continents we have pillaged and raped. The tribes of Africa are fast disappearing like those that have disappeared in North America and other developed continents. The tribes in Africa will soon disappear, just as the snows of Kilimanjaro will soon disappear.

Greed, oppression and political squabbles by rival post-colonial colonizers and their industrial proxies are tearing up entire villages of human souls. They are seeking rare metals needed for space exploration to find life like ours out there. All the while, life like ours exists right here on this planet in a myriad forms of God-created beauty, culture, language and color. Blinded by our greed, we see only, like Narcissus, self-love and self-preservation at the expense of God’s beautiful creation. It’s too late now to lament for material things and the loss of some of frozen water on a bit of rock in the middle of the Dark Continent. Let’s instead lament now for ourselves and the loss of our shared humanity. It may still not be too late to save ourselves.

© 2008 Mahomed Ally Keshavjee. All Rights Reserved. Essay #360.

Bay Street Blues

The brokers and bankers on Bay Street drank Bear-Stearns’ illicit booze
And tried to abscond with the windfall without paying their dues
But drinking an unknown proof always leads to a drunken doze
Basin Street has nothing on Bay Street’s drunken snooze

From the resulting financial hangover nobody will have any clues
Senile investors will now have to wake up and soberly choose
Or their families will soon have to go without even a pair of shoes
Everybody and their mothers will soon be singing the Bay Street Blues

Some firms of brokers and bankers on Wall Street lit a fuse
Thinking they’d have some firecracker fun and not pay the dues
But Monday morning March 17 came the earth-shattering news
That those who trusted these brokers and bankers everything will lose

The SEC pretended to police the Wall by cooking Martha Stewart’s goose
But the real wolves were busy inflicting on the public a nasty ruse
That cooked goose was the Street’s smoke and mirror ruse
Their own crookedness and greed to hide and excuse

The Nation many more billions of greenbacks will lose
So the fat cats on Wall Street can have more of that expensive booze
Better to go to Vegas where you can dine, dance and your game choose
And come back home empty-handed, but with a satisfactory excuse

Since Katrina, Basin Street has lost its basins and has its own blues
Those basins could have stored the Street’s ill-gotten monetary refuse
But all that’s left in the Big Easy are some bowls with stale rice, alligator and moose
They can serve as begging bowls for brokers and bankers with their soul-less shoes

Soon Bay Street will be to nobody of any use
But instead will only serve as a jazz singers muse
And a symbol of those who their savings lose
All Canadians are now singing the Bay Street Blues



© 2008. Mahomed Ally Keshavjee. All Rights Reserved. Essay #362.

Jee Jay Wrap

Come on and hear the Jee Jay Wrap,
It is now covering the whole world map,
There’s no time to sit or take a nap,
There’s work to do. Get going, get hep.

Come hear and sing about the Jee Jay Wrap.
Joseph put on the Technicolor Magic Wrap
But Momins added Gold thread to that Wrap
Come over and join us in the Jee Jay Wrap

Come and open that big-hearted compassion tap,
Help the poor to understand the Jee Jay Wrap.
All who wear Joseph’s Magic can do the Jee Jay Wrap
The light is one. The coats are many. There is no gap.

Be sincere. Purify the mind and drink the magic sap.
Have faith, work hard and the world will fall into your lap
Come get hep. Come do the Happy Jee Jay Wrap.
The world is blind to the Gur Gat Ganga tap.
The Ganges flows right past your door. Scoop the sap.
Come get hep and do the Jee Jay Wrap.

The Illusionary world beckons but it is a big trap,
The Lord of the Ages guides us to leave worries in his lap.
To understand the message you need an inner thinking cap.
Get hep. Come on and do the Jee Jay Wrap.

Unity and ujama is the answer to cover the world map.
Build brotherhood and get out of the individualistic trap.
Get hep. Be happy and come join in the Jee Jay Wrap.
Leave the wine, drink water –it is the wise man’s magic sap.
Get hep. Come and do the melodious Jee Jay Wrap.

If you have faith and say to yonder mountain
Come hither, it shall come in a snap.
Come over, get hep and do the Jee Jay Wrap.


© 2008 Mahomed Keshavjee written on Mar 1, 2008