Friday, December 31, 2021

Queen’s Park, Toronto

 

Thanks

 

To kickstart the New Year, I wanted to express gratitude to our guru, Srila Prabhupada, with this

poem:

 

Thanks

 

Thanks for Krishna’s name

And for my name

For a new goal

For this lost soul

 

Thanks for the real life

And Life Comes from Life

A new way of thinking

A nectar I’ve been drinking

 

Thanks for the chance to sing

For spices, especially hing

The food, the rotis

Kurtas and dhotis

 

Thanks for all the books

And “hook or by crook”

The travel, the adventures

Toothpaste for the dentures

Your powerful discourses

And fighting Maya’s forces

For your life story

Its unfathomable glory

 

Thanks for non-violence

Unless it’s in defense

Your liberalism

Your conservativism

And the accommodation

For apparent contradiction

 

Thanks for such characters as Hiranya

And what to speak of Chaitanya

Thanks for George and Jagannath

 

For Krishna and Gopinath

For cymbals, drums, tilok

Kirtans that made us rock

The mantras, Sanskrit, om

The way to go back home

For shaven heads, being clean

And insisting on hygiene

For the love of bull and cow

We must tend to them now

For your talks and your walks

And blessings for my walks

For the place 243

Devotees, your GBC

 

Thanks for teaching us dance

Chants and trance

Giving us humour

No room for rumour

For farms, restaurants, schools

Four regs and rules

For blessing me with dramas

Holy places and dhamas

For the Deity, the icon

The home we call ISKCON

For backing the family

The youth and the elderly

For prasadam, its distribution

Done in great profusion

For being our father, our mother

Showing kindness to one another

 

Thanks for your coming

What can I say of your going

 

Thanks for your smile, your sauce

For you are always the boss

For allowing me to be

Eternally

 

May the Source be with you!

5km