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Monday 26 December 2011

THE HELA HATAN OF RITIGALA

(for Ritigala Sumedha)

These hills are ancient,
older than the stories
and poetry
the dance and the dancer
the warrior and the war.
They live
because they are lived in
and their stories re-related
not only with word on paper
but in the grace of movement,
the tempered steel
the focused mind
the heart of equanimity.
These hills are ancient
because they are new
and are renewed 
and their spirits reawakened
with the particularity of gaze
the clasp of hands
the sprinkling of labour
the veneration of a tradition.
There are winds 
               that swirl as mist;
they are made 
               of the life-breath
of the immortals,
the defenders 
of a land and lifestyle,
the thousands 
of the Yaksha Nation;
they are made of strong belief
and tender engagement,
feet that know earth
hands that protect flame 
and eyes bereft of anger;
made of you and I
and a history un-visited
and is yet both of our now
and tomorrow;
made also,
among other things,
of a man called Sumedha,
history-born, 
tradition-resident,
of the soil, the waters
and a mountain
called Ritigala.



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