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Saturday 24 September 2011

A koan untouched by a tropical storm


වැස්සට නොතෙමුනු කමටහනක්
 

මහා වැස්සෙන් බේරෙන්නට
ඉහලූ කුඩය යට
සිල් සුවඳින් තෙත බරිත වූ
සුදු වත
හැඳි රුව
දිටිමි.
පින් කල නිසාද පව් කල නිසාද,
දික් වුයේද සසර
කෙටි වුයේද,
දැහැන් ගත වූවාද
සිල් බිඳුනේද?
නොදනිමි.
නතර විය
ඇය ළඟ 
සිත.

Friday 23 September 2011

The primary colours of our land

Send the gaze along a ripple
draw it back
and you will breathe in a gathering
of narratives, stories of stolen harvests,
and robbed water,
the then and now of a little take
and much giving.
Look!
The tree line parts
for the Waste Lands Ordinance,
and there where the water breaks and breaks
in sad heartbeat and longing,
did you see the spectre of indignation rise,
the blood that refused to fall,
the land that was not bartered,
the ways, tender and proud, that stood tall when it could,
bent low when it had to, but never ever panicked?
Look!
Look at the patchwork of green,
light, dark and in-between.
Do you see the cartographer, the advisor and the advised,
arm in arm laughing,
or with grave face expounding on scarcity,
efficiency and productivity?
Do they spell ‘futility’ in not so many words,
do they make you cry?
Sit here until twilight
and let dream converge with prayer
and life will come calling,
not as equation or balance sheet,
but as palms clasped in prayer,
small white flowers and a lamp,
a murmuring, a how-are-you
to an ancient god, benefactor, friend and dependent,
Listen to the night!
It whispers: time is longer than life.
Stay awhile, you don’t have to go.
Offer a tear and a smile
for people who came
and things that will arrive.

[From the poetry collection 'Threads', shortlisted for the Gratiaen Prize 2007]

Thursday 22 September 2011

In the unmapped country

Across a swollen river
and beyond forbidding mountains,
there are less traveled paths
vaguely scented by those who came before.
The unhappy lost don't make a community,
if you must know,
but a nation of ghosts that walk through one another.
They narrate to roots made for tripping
sands crafted for burning
and to other deaf witnesses,
they speak the sorrows of their banishment.
There is poetry here,
alliteration that flows over riverbed
in the manner of the perfect spherical.
Smooth.
Rhyme rises from footprint and morning,
and rhythm comes without invite.
And it is not that there's nothing to share
that there is no one who will understand;
but this is the way of this temporality,
there are hundreds who have memorized
the cartography of Solitude,
they know it so well
that they remain silent.
For over the mountains and across the river
there is a land that time will not forget
a land of root and sand,
that tripped heart and cut soul,
which is why the grass here grows in unimaginable greens,
simply, they are made fertile
by the liquids that abandonment rains.

Wednesday 21 September 2011

ODE TO ERASED GRAFFITI [on Sigiriya]

Scattered archaeology:
tell me of heroic times,
tell me of battles and surrender,
the meeting of version
and tapestries that resulted.
Relate your War and Peace,
the matters of the state,
the governance of humours,
the reconciliation with frailties.
Architect, engineer, interior-decorator:
awake from the sleep of brick and mortar,
correct the flaws of transcription.
Brick-layer, etcher of fantasy, water-giver,
you most of all:
rise from the resurrection of madman and saint,
gather from dust and paint
the traces of footprint and obliteration,
and narrate in your choice of metaphor,
the meta-narratives of labour,
the sweat that didn't get told,
the wavering signature of heartache,
and where they paused to rest
in the gardens of paradise.
Tell me also, in song or silence,
In whisper or shout,
the terms of compensation,
the occupational hazards,
the loves of the depicter of beauty,
the irrelevancies so decreed
the texture of cooked incompatibilities,
the hiding place at wilting
of the flower-bringer's fragrance,
the questions never asked
contestations never articulated,
the story of submission and resistance,
those little pieces of meaning made meaningless.
Colossus,
artifact and monumental cultural objectification,
this is an incomplete petition
and poorly written
in the broken English that I know.
But list for me now
the names of all those things born of your womb:
the irreverent progeny edited out by historian,
the defiant woman who did not apply for a colour-line version,
the unhappy prince who could not purchase loyalty or love,
the supplier of pigment whose contract was terminated.
Record for me the things
that perhaps by-passed the passer-by
the regent of many coronations
and indeed his many political biographers,
for there's a broken heart whose million pieces lament,
whose sorrows gurgle incoherence
in subterranean banishment,
a sad, scattered piece of flesh and longing
that awaits breath
for breathing and resurrection.

Monday 19 September 2011

QUESTIONS FOR LEONARD WOOLF

Tell me Leonard.
what did you take away?
We do not call you ‘colonial’
no, not you nor your project,
perhaps because you were blessed
with different eyes,
because you saw
in the eyes of a buffalo,
in its solitary rumination
and its unbridled rage when shot,
something that was us,
something that was us all,
you included.
What did you take away, Leonard?
What did you give?
A lens that made us pity ourselves,
a window into a world
where there was heroism
even if embedded in poverty
entrenched in deceit and pathos?
Where have you gone, Leonard;
into the pages
of an uncomfortable history?
Is it cold there,
or warm,
that refuge you’ve carved for yourself
away, far away from accusation,
you slick white man,
whom I cannot bring myself to curse?
But tell me, bumble bee
that checked out our flowers,
wrote down their names,
described colour and fragrance,
did your countrymen understand,
and tell me,
did we figure it out,
did we recognise you enough,
did we recognise ourselves,
as the sad, incomplete
and yet
so unbearably
serendipitious creatures
that we are?

Sunday 18 September 2011

ON THE HEART

"But what of the heart?" Almitra might very well have asked.
And the Prophet might very well have answered thus:
It is made, Almitra, of material things,
arteries, muscle, sinew, valve and such
tangible, pulsating things that pump, circulate, preserve life.
But Almitra, the heart is a construct of other things
less tangible,
less amenable to capture
through the imperfect instrument called reason,
for Almitra
in it is resident poetry,
in it is resident hope,
longing, breathlessness and breathing,
and who can deny that in its meagre chambers
unbearable sorrow and unexpressible joy are roommates?
Your heart Almitra is the sum total
of all the paths you've walked
and all the spaces
you've refused to inhabit,
for it is made of both presence
and absence,
and somewhere, you will know someday
or perhaps you already know,
there blooms a rare flower
of exquisite fragrance
and tender petal
a flower nourished by ancient winds
and futures that colour our dreams,
some call it love, Almitra,
it is a heart thing,
rare but beautiful
and if you should encounter it,
call it a blessing and embrace
for some blessings
when you shut the door on them
leave,
they never return.

Words are borrowed and reconfigured; they mean little if not shared. 
So do what you will with these lines.  And this includes comments. MS