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Saturday 23 June 2012

For Nirmal Ranjith Devasiri

We don’t agree,
my friend and I,
we don’t agree to disagree
but we intersect
at commonalities
respect and decency
the worth of scholarship
the privileging of debate;
we have different premise-platforms
and so,
my friend and I
we disagree.

But he is a father and so am I
he has a daughter, I have two
some third rate punk snoops around
and he gets upset;
I would too.

They’ve come with a claim:
‘From the top’;
they’ve come
and it matters not
if claim is true or false,
it matters only
that claim is a possible,
it matters also
that my friend is friend
but more than this,
he is citizen
and even more than that
he speaks his mind.

He speaks
and therefore
I can speak too;
and so I speak here
so he can speak louder.
 
[I will not stand shoulder-to-shoulder
with every chip-shouldered
out-of-power, want-power
loud-mouthed objector;
for I pick and choose my company,
may I add?]

My friend and I
we disagree
but there’s never been
and never will be
one word in anger.

I stand with him,
without hesitation,
and with utmost pride.


LEAVE A COMMENT

4 comments :

  1. P.L.J.B.Palipana23 June 2012 at 18:22

    THANKS!MALINDA;I AGRRE BUT 6% DEMAND IS VERY REASONABLE>.

    ReplyDelete
  2. yes malinda, We agree with you,
    Karunarathna Paranawithana

    ReplyDelete
  3. We need to find some common ground. Sri Lanka has never had an opportunity like this post independence. However it looks with debate and division we will as a nation be crippled. Those states at given times who pretend to be assisting us will benefit and others will have the last lough. JR and PREME and the Queen thought in their dealings too, that they out foxed the regimes they went to bed with did not think fit to clean up our mess and use home grown decent fellows to help the nation but at each turn looked for experts from outside. We have it all but do not use it. The good are sunk and silent,do not surface . Even if they do only for a moment . Prefer to be silent and pretend to be happy. Pretending to be content as you are not a party to it. Their is fault in silence too. Passive participants endorsing what is wrong.

    ReplyDelete