Today is May Day

Yes, you are damn right it is!

May Day falls on April 29^th,

on January 1^st and December 31^st

and everyday between,

it is the day they built the Taj Mahal

from scratch to polish

the pyramids and minarets

stupas and tanks

the nuclear reactor

and the multi-barrel gun

stretching from first stitch

to after-sales service

and disbursement of insurance

the picking of pockets

ravaging of heart

breaking of bones

and the celebration

of labour

with courtesy and redness

no apology

none given,

none asked.  

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Serendipity unveiled

This land
is every land there ever was
and ever will be,
this land
is not foreign
to foreign soil,
gaze upon it
and that’s all it takes
to obtain permanent residency
to love and hate
to own and disown
This land passes
from generation to generation
traveller to traveller
journal and revision,
it has moved from hand to hand
been chit-chatted about
civilized and vilified
and yet
again and again
through ownership and bombardment
lyrical rendering and misrepresentation
it rises
from cartography and cartographer
traveller and description
long nights
and blazing afternoons,
emerging in colour and storm
wave and wave-remnant
through mist and forgetting
rides on parallel lines
and wanders in impossible universes.
There are temples made of rock
and made of seaspray and yearning,
monuments from the past
as fresh as imagined tomorrows,
boats and carpets
lines and curves.
This land
is a beautiful woman,
an old woman’s recollection
a baby’s ripple of laughter,
a song sculpted without blueprint
plundered without mercy
lost without name
but always,
always
signatured with love.
[from the collection 'Some texts are made of leaves,' shortlisted for the Gratiaen Award 2011]

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A curl of cinnamon

Cinnamon is bark
is bite and flavor-flush,
intoxicating aroma too,
a lakeside, a garden
commodity and profit-giver,
and like all things exotic,
it begins with sweat,
the arc of labour,
the art of crafting
the curl and bind
of political economy
game for child
business as usual for end-adult
necessity for primary-adult
a taste of heaven
cooked on earth
with hands
and fires that resisted dousing
century after century after century.

[Inspired by the photography of Rukshan Abeywansha]

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Rain-takes

Fresh, so fresh, exciting!
hot, so hot,
hotter than Global Warming at its worst
water is play-invite
rain or sun
it’s lightness of being
light, so light
it’s made for flying
flyer and spectator
when it rains, it rains
we live with it, we play
like snow
made for snowmen and snow angels
and sun
for tan and crop
and drying clothes,
embrace empowers
curse detracts
and that’s the story
the poet missed
when a lie was immortalized:
‘rain, rain, go away!’

[inspired by the photography of Rukshan Abeywansha]

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Satheesh

And Satheesh

you were so much like your father

spirited but not in-your-face

nor mine,

and your heart-timbre

was voice

in the long-breathed drag

wavering as the waves

of the great oceanic wilderness

that is also refuge

wavering in the less tempestuous flow

and the egoda-megoda

of life

in a boat that has now crossed

leaving cadence and echo;

haunts, brother.

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Signatures of sustainability

Their footprints will grow

as shadows do

longer by the hour;

smiles will not grow wider

for the yawn of dream and reality

collapses fast in dream-fade

and in that short road to adulthood

smaller footprints will show

that life follows life

city skyline grows higher

landscape becomes art form

children will smile

now and then and again,

and in the swift movement of nation

from the here to there

of design and architecture,

glitter and ambience

poverty remains alas

slow of foot,

resilient.

*Pic by Rukshan Abeywansha

[Published in the 'UNDO' section of The Nation, April 22, 20112]

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Token

From a sick woman's countenance
memory of caring,
from a man who lost his legs
a betal-chew smile,
from the sunday papers
the courage to say no,
from the roadways
an unexpected colour-mix,
and from the sky
the poetry of cloud movement;
strung together
with words from adictionary conversations.
wrapped in heart-paper made for breaking
at touch and kiss and glance:
my token of love
on a slow afternoon.

[From the collection 'Some texts are made of leaves', shortlisted for the Gratiaen Award 2011]

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