For Dase*

Painting by Asela Abeywardene

It has been ten years now,

almost,

and I had thought that time's dependable eraser

had done its work,

had filtered out the insufferable,

gathered manageable sorrows,

arranged according to size and temper,

assigned slots,

and banished forever the tear and sigh.

But Dase,

You came to me this autumn night

flying from an Andean landscape,

you fell like a broken leaf soaked in a rainbow.

and I find myself bathed in recall

clothed with history's immemorial questions.

Tell me:

tell me about that terrible moment.

Were there thoughts of aspirations

unfulfilled and poverty stricken,

slogans poorly chosen?

Did the could-have-been hurt more

than the lacerations of capture, detention and torture?

Did the wind that bandaged your every wound

arrive with mother's-milk fragrance?

Tell me Dase about that terrible moment

when you robbed your torturer of his pleasure.

That last sigh you gifted the world,

where did it find residence?

Did it settle in the leaves of that unhappy tree

where your limbs were turned into branch

your skin into bark?

Did it travel on the sorrowful gaze

of your beautiful eyes,

this final giving of salute

made of resignation or resolve?

Your bits and pieces, Dase,

they have travelled far,

all the way from long ago and memory

along an unwrapped bandage

and in a teardrop.

Tell me all there is to tell and more,

for I cannot gather you in my arms again.

* Dassanayake, student leader at Peradeniya (1984-89), reportedly drawn and quartered, literally, somewhere in Kandy, end 1989.

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