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Saturday 31 December 2011

ON LOVE

Love is a regent
with an entourage 
there is terror, fear, sorrow 
courtesying even as they hurt
poisoned darts
to make heart tremble
dismantle mind 
wreck hour into minutes
that can never add up to 60 again;
invites embrace
and melting 
and we grip hard to force the issue
or loosely to make for easier dissolve,
or run away 
on account of poverty
(we can't pay the price),
when all there is to do
is caress,
with fingertip
with gaze
word
and silence.   

[From the collection 'Stray kites on string-less days']

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Friday 30 December 2011

MUTTIAH



What was bigger, do you think,
the Kookaburra or his eyes?
What mesmerized more,
the glint,
unwavering focus
the afterwards-smile?
He was made of grin-and-bear,
this boy who came from a mountain
this man who caught insult
and tossed it back
to bounce and spin
and disarrange wickets.
He was slighted
but was not slighting;
the Smiling Assassin
never killed;
he just wrote some poetry
with finger, wrist, mind, eye and heart.
And we,
the beneficiaries
of the mis-hit that went for SIX,
the miss that took his off-stump
or slid by keeper for four,
the brilliant run-out
and breath-taking catch,
and of course the wickets,
the wickets
that fell and fell and fell
like the records that will take time beating,
yes, we
can salute.
You made us taller, Murali.
Thanks.   

[from the collection 'Stray kites on string-less days]

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Thursday 29 December 2011

FOR SIMON


Life was a twirl of smoke
and madness
black, white and shade
word-weave was your thing,
wasn't it Simon?
In the sacred groves
you make your tracks these days
does nihilist meet lover,
does Yasa toss the burden of memory
at Suba
and Suba throw back?
Is the Afterlife Mullegama Galkanda
as silent with history
as it was this side of death?
Does it get covered by wilderness
uncovered by civilization
and re-covered by the eternal verities?
Did the dadayakkaraya forgive caricature
and the heart,
does it gasp 
in love's breathlessness,
still?
And is the golf-cap
lighter 
than the lightness of your being
and loving
here on this earth you walked
so many centuries ago?

[From the collection 'Stray kites on string-less days']

Wednesday 28 December 2011

COMMANDANTE


Ah! Che,
Yes, you are now brand
and product
capitalism’s artifact
pin-up boy
for everything 
you objected to
yes, 
your face is 
on t-shirt
and hoarding,
web-banner
and fb wall,
profile pic
and other places
you would never have dreamed about. 
Not your fault, companero,
no, not at all;
it was not about victory
but the march
the journey
and you touched
and touch
and will touch
and change and change and change.
Slowly, yes,
but still, surely, 
yes, surely.

Hasta Siempre Commandante!

[from the collection 'Stray kites on string-less days]

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Tuesday 27 December 2011

PACIFIER

(for my daughter Dayadi Sucharya)

And she looks deep into my eyes
now and then.
Asks: are you crying? 
Says: wait a little, don’t go.
She runs into her room
brings out her most prized possession,
‘The Good King Sivi’.
Lady Birds her love
and waves her heart as handkerchief
in the manner of magician and lover
wipes tear and instructs:
‘Read this and you will remember me’.
She’s such a grandmother,
this daughter of mine,
and such a child too.

[from the collection 'Stray kites on string-less days]

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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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