May Redness

Come May

and there’s greeting

in cloth and color

beret berating

the redness of defiance

defined and ill-defined;

come May

there’s flag and slogan

regurgitation and coinage

replaying of old themes

and words that seem new;

come May

and there’s redness

rising above man and market

flying over rally and march

as predictable

but ever so fresh

newer than other seasons

of protest and ritual

thankfully.

[Inspired by the photography of Ravindra Dharmatilleka]

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Epistles

Epistles I’ve seen

inked visitations

of observation and report

they’ve come in glance and innuendo

changes of expression

short-changed response

to things real and perceived.

Epistles I’ve read

notes of passing and no-return

senders moving on

not too long after

the finality of eternal claim.

Epistles now arrive

from far away and now

hand-delivered love

crafted in write and read

and these notes of endearment

come now as box

as bookmark and candy

inviting a philately

that is not nation-bound,

for these epistles

cashew-shaped and coconut-frosted

are fluent in the grammar of enigma

of flirt and toy

and celebrate

in confusion and clarity

the timeless insanities

the undisguised blessings

of anonymity.

Ode to a child

A twist of the hands of a toy-clock,

the arrival of a butterfly and a kite,
an unthinking word that tore your world apart:
is this how your hours were marked?
Did you collect any colours today,
any keepsake from a pavement
a dream that flew from a billboard?
When you mixed perfume and dust
did your mind erupt in an impossible fountain
in uncontrolled mirth
or as the most beautiful smile?
Did you birth the dawn with fire
did you feel life ebb away
in the startled ways
of the traditional homelands of warfare?
Did you pause to savour
moment and moment
or was it easier
or perhaps made more sense
to let the receding wave recede
and embrace the approaching one
with open arms made of unimaginable optimism
with open arms carved from a wood
called ‘lack of choice’?
In any event,
that smile,
is it the smile of a heart
that knows generosity and nothing else
even when encountering the tormentor,
the thief that sought to rob innocence
tried to re-paint magic in adult colours?
I don’t know your ways, your world,
and this is why I ask:
“Was your day a child’s day
or the residue left by an adult brew?”
I don’t know your ways, your world,
so I shall stop
and throw a smile
and make this request:
“take it and twist it with yours
unleash that fairy power;
cure me of the curse of adulthood”.

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Dipena tama-dhamsina

Vesak

in these glittering times
of spectacle and flush
volume and insistence
is competition inscribed,
and yet in the compelling
in finish and provoking
of oohs and aahs
let it be said also
there’s crafting and frill
the meticulous and veneration;
there are fingers here
eye and heart
delight in process and product
and faith every inch of the way
colored by ethics of giving
rejoicing in obtained joys
there’s dana, sila and bhavana
cognizance of eternal verities
and affirmation of the collective
murmured in the timeless chant,
sabbe satta bhavantu sukhitatta.

[Inspired by the photography of Rukshan Abeywansha and Ravindra Dharmatilleka]

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All that is solid is made of air

Everything solid is made of air

the breath of the foresaken

the lungs of the unnamed

of granite existence

that did not forbid

an eye for detail

and matching instruments;

everything solid is made of order

the do-this,

the for-this-much pain

and merit tangible

and after-life bliss,

the rajakaariya

dismissed by fervor

the higher kaariya

of faith;

everything solid

came with power

stayed and outlived

the powerful

spoke

and keeps speaking

of air and mind

the metaphysics

history will not record.

[Inspired by the photography of Rukshan Abeywansha]

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The Archaeology of Time

So our lives we live
they pass
in and out of light
by clock-hand determination
colours that trick memory,
but in that passing of ghost
and swing of scimitar
at the back of beyond
that’s recollection
in the foregrounding
of happier things
delight somersaults 
from forgettable nights
and uneasy dawn
as mushroom and tree
as the waiting on waters
the catch-n-pass
of tender times. 

[Inspired by the photography of Rukshan Abeywansha]

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Ode to recurrent reunions

Three minutes is a long time

a long time to be away from new love

six weeks was a century of distance;

our love was just one year old

and made of longing and cloud-burst

hard gravel rush

and fluttering trepidation

reunion was blood-rush

and schoolboy hesitation:

had distance and time carved out

remembrance, deadened love?

She was in bed

wrapped in her little girl world,

but eyed curtain edge at sound

sat up with the broadest smile

heart and arms leapt

for embrace

and kisses gathered

from the monsoon of waiting

swept over corporeal barricades.

Our love is now ten years old

and our waiting is framed

by known patterns of dislocation;

we don’t wait on one another

our love is used to other worlds

that encroach and rob

give in the parsimony of routine,

but there was a late night arrival

as hesitant and desirous as that morning

from that time of greater innocence –

she lay in bed

in her storybook world

working out the plots and plans

of this moment and tomorrows

where I may or may not figure,

she had to turn on footsteps heard

there was glitter in eye

and that smile that has not aged

and love gushed

not in embrace or kiss

but a heartbeat-bleed

and tears that were fought back

for decencies agreed upon.

Our love is old now. 

It will grow older still;

but the girl of one-year love

and the girl of ten-year knowing

will smile that smile

reach out and touch

without a word,

and I

mendicant of mercies undeserved

will pray

that love will revisit

in poetry and rain

in volumes I am too poor to give.

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