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 ownship 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.
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 ownship 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.
[Inspired by Natalie Soysa's album by the same title, and used to decorate a photo essay carried in 'The Nation' of October 30, 2011]
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It is really beautiful to read your lovely poem with the photographs you have printed. I like to say I really like the photographs she has taken they are amazingly beautiful.
ReplyDeleteI feel that you have written the history of our land, the views, the landscapes, and the hearts of our beautiful people ...... in a different way.
I feel that you have also tried to reveal about ones life.