A koan untouched by a tropical storm

වැස්සට නොතෙමුනු කමටහනක්

 

මහා වැස්සෙන් බේරෙන්නට

ඉහලූ කුඩය යට

සිල් සුවඳින් තෙත බරිත වූ

සුදු වත

හැඳි රුව

දිටිමි.

පින් කල නිසාද පව් කල නිසාද,

දික් වුයේද සසර

කෙටි වුයේද,

දැහැන් ගත වූවාද

සිල් බිඳුනේද?

නොදනිමි.

නතර විය

ඇය ළඟ 

සිත.

The primary colours of our land

Send the gaze along a ripple

draw it back

and you will breathe in a gathering

of narratives, stories of stolen harvests,

and robbed water,

the then and now of a little take

and much giving.

Look!

The tree line parts

for the Waste Lands Ordinance,

and there where the water breaks and breaks

in sad heartbeat and longing,

did you see the spectre of indignation rise,

the blood that refused to fall,

the land that was not bartered,

the ways, tender and proud, that stood tall when it could,

bent low when it had to, but never ever panicked?

Look!

Look at the patchwork of green,

light, dark and in-between.

Do you see the cartographer, the advisor and the advised,

arm in arm laughing,

or with grave face expounding on scarcity,

efficiency and productivity?

Do they spell ‘futility’ in not so many words,

do they make you cry?

Sit here until twilight

and let dream converge with prayer

and life will come calling,

not as equation or balance sheet,

but as palms clasped in prayer,

small white flowers and a lamp,

a murmuring, a how-are-you

to an ancient god, benefactor, friend and dependent,

Listen to the night!

It whispers: time is longer than life.

Stay awhile, you don’t have to go.

Offer a tear and a smile

for people who came

and things that will arrive.

[From the poetry collection 'Threads', shortlisted for the Gratiaen Prize 2007]

In the unmapped country

Across a swollen river

and beyond forbidding mountains,

there are less traveled paths

vaguely scented by those who came before.

The unhappy lost don't make a community,

if you must know,

but a nation of ghosts that walk through one another.

They narrate to roots made for tripping

sands crafted for burning

and to other deaf witnesses,

they speak the sorrows of their banishment.

There is poetry here,

alliteration that flows over riverbed

in the manner of the perfect spherical.

Smooth.

Rhyme rises from footprint and morning,

and rhythm comes without invite.

And it is not that there's nothing to share

that there is no one who will understand;

but this is the way of this temporality,

there are hundreds who have memorized

the cartography of Solitude,

they know it so well

that they remain silent.

For over the mountains and across the river

there is a land that time will not forget

a land of root and sand,

that tripped heart and cut soul,

which is why the grass here grows in unimaginable greens,

simply, they are made fertile

by the liquids that abandonment rains.

ODE TO ERASED GRAFFITI [on Sigiriya]

Scattered archaeology:

tell me of heroic times,

tell me of battles and surrender,

the meeting of version

and tapestries that resulted.

Relate your War and Peace,

the matters of the state,

the governance of humours,

the reconciliation with frailties.

Architect, engineer, interior-decorator:

awake from the sleep of brick and mortar,

correct the flaws of transcription.

Brick-layer, etcher of fantasy, water-giver,

you most of all:

rise from the resurrection of madman and saint,

gather from dust and paint

the traces of footprint and obliteration,

and narrate in your choice of metaphor,

the meta-narratives of labour,

the sweat that didn't get told,

the wavering signature of heartache,

and where they paused to rest

in the gardens of paradise.

Tell me also, in song or silence,

In whisper or shout,

the terms of compensation,

the occupational hazards,

the loves of the depicter of beauty,

the irrelevancies so decreed

the texture of cooked incompatibilities,

the hiding place at wilting

of the flower-bringer's fragrance,

the questions never asked

contestations never articulated,

the story of submission and resistance,

those little pieces of meaning made meaningless.

Colossus,

artifact and monumental cultural objectification,

this is an incomplete petition

and poorly written

in the broken English that I know.

But list for me now

the names of all those things born of your womb:

the irreverent progeny edited out by historian,

the defiant woman who did not apply for a colour-line version,

the unhappy prince who could not purchase loyalty or love,

the supplier of pigment whose contract was terminated.

Record for me the things

that perhaps by-passed the passer-by

the regent of many coronations

and indeed his many political biographers,

for there's a broken heart whose million pieces lament,

whose sorrows gurgle incoherence

in subterranean banishment,

a sad, scattered piece of flesh and longing

that awaits breath

for breathing and resurrection.

QUESTIONS FOR LEONARD WOOLF

Tell me Leonard.

what did you take away?

We do not call you ‘colonial’

no, not you nor your project,

perhaps because you were blessed

with different eyes,

because you saw

in the eyes of a buffalo,

in its solitary rumination

and its unbridled rage when shot,

something that was us,

something that was us all,

you included.

What did you take away, Leonard?

What did you give?

A lens that made us pity ourselves,

a window into a world

where there was heroism

even if embedded in poverty

entrenched in deceit and pathos?

Where have you gone, Leonard;

into the pages

of an uncomfortable history?

Is it cold there,

or warm,

that refuge you’ve carved for yourself

away, far away from accusation,

you slick white man,

whom I cannot bring myself to curse?

But tell me, bumble bee

that checked out our flowers,

wrote down their names,

described colour and fragrance,

did your countrymen understand,

and tell me,

did we figure it out,

did we recognise you enough,

did we recognise ourselves,

as the sad, incomplete

and yet

so unbearably

serendipitious creatures

that we are?

ON THE HEART

"But what of the heart?" Almitra might very well have asked.

And the Prophet might very well have answered thus:

It is made, Almitra, of material things,

arteries, muscle, sinew, valve and such

tangible, pulsating things that pump, circulate, preserve life.

But Almitra, the heart is a construct of other things

less tangible,

less amenable to capture

through the imperfect instrument called reason,

for Almitra

in it is resident poetry,

in it is resident hope,

longing, breathlessness and breathing,

and who can deny that in its meagre chambers

unbearable sorrow and unexpressible joy are roommates?

Your heart Almitra is the sum total

of all the paths you've walked

and all the spaces

you've refused to inhabit,

for it is made of both presence

and absence,

and somewhere, you will know someday

or perhaps you already know,

there blooms a rare flower

of exquisite fragrance

and tender petal

a flower nourished by ancient winds

and futures that colour our dreams,

some call it love, Almitra,

it is a heart thing,

rare but beautiful

and if you should encounter it,

call it a blessing and embrace

for some blessings

when you shut the door on them

leave,

they never return.

Words are borrowed and reconfigured; they mean little if not shared. 
So do what you will with these lines.  And this includes comments. MS