ON LOVE

Love is a regent

with an entourage 

there is terror, fear, sorrow 

courtesying even as they hurt

poisoned darts

to make heart tremble

dismantle mind 

wreck hour into minutes

that can never add up to 60 again;

invites embrace

and melting 

and we grip hard to force the issue

or loosely to make for easier dissolve,

or run away 

on account of poverty

(we can't pay the price),

when all there is to do

is caress,

with fingertip

with gaze

word

and silence.   

[From the collection 'Stray kites on string-less days']

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MUTTIAH

What was bigger, do you think,

the Kookaburra or his eyes?

What mesmerized more,

the glint,

unwavering focus

the afterwards-smile?

He was made of grin-and-bear,

this boy who came from a mountain

this man who caught insult

and tossed it back

to bounce and spin

and disarrange wickets.

He was slighted

but was not slighting;

the Smiling Assassin

never killed;

he just wrote some poetry

with finger, wrist, mind, eye and heart.

And we,

the beneficiaries

of the mis-hit that went for SIX,

the miss that took his off-stump

or slid by keeper for four,

the brilliant run-out

and breath-taking catch,

and of course the wickets,

the wickets

that fell and fell and fell

like the records that will take time beating,

yes, we

can salute.

You made us taller, Murali.

Thanks.   

[from the collection 'Stray kites on string-less days]

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FOR SIMON

Life was a twirl of smoke
and madness
black, white and shade
word-weave was your thing,
wasn't it Simon?
In the sacred groves
you make your tracks these days
does nihilist meet lover,
does Yasa toss the burden of memory
at Suba
and Suba throw back?
Is the Afterlife Mullegama Galkanda
as silent with history
as it was this side of death?
Does it get covered by wilderness
uncovered by civilization
and re-covered by the eternal verities?
Did the dadayakkaraya forgive caricature
and the heart,
does it gasp 
in love's breathlessness,
still?
And is the golf-cap
lighter 
than the lightness of your being
and loving
here on this earth you walked
so many centuries ago?

[From the collection 'Stray kites on string-less days']

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COMMANDANTE

Ah! Che,
Yes, you are now brand
and product
capitalism’s artifact
pin-up boy
for everything 
you objected to
yes, 
your face is 
on t-shirt
and hoarding,
web-banner
and fb wall,
profile pic
and other places
you would never have dreamed about. 
Not your fault, companero,
no, not at all;
it was not about victory
but the march
the journey
and you touched
and touch
and will touch
and change and change and change.
Slowly, yes,
but still, surely, 
yes, surely.

Hasta Siempre Commandante!

[from the collection 'Stray kites on string-less days]

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PACIFIER

(for my daughter Dayadi Sucharya)

And she looks deep into my eyes

now and then.

Asks: are you crying? 

Says: wait a little, don’t go.

She runs into her room

brings out her most prized possession,

‘The Good King Sivi’.

Lady Birds her love

and waves her heart as handkerchief

in the manner of magician and lover

wipes tear and instructs:

‘Read this and you will remember me’.

She’s such a grandmother,

this daughter of mine,

and such a child too.

[from the collection 'Stray kites on string-less days]

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THE HELA HATAN OF RITIGALA

(for Ritigala Sumedha)

These hills are ancient,

older than the stories

and poetry

the dance and the dancer

the warrior and the war.

They live

because they are lived in

and their stories re-related

not only with word on paper

but in the grace of movement,

the tempered steel

the focused mind

the heart of equanimity.

These hills are ancient

because they are new

and are renewed 

and their spirits reawakened

with the particularity of gaze

the clasp of hands

the sprinkling of labour

the veneration of a tradition.

There are winds 

               that swirl as mist;

they are made 

               of the life-breath

of the immortals,

the defenders 

of a land and lifestyle,

the thousands 

of the Yaksha Nation;

they are made of strong belief

and tender engagement,

feet that know earth

hands that protect flame 

and eyes bereft of anger;

made of you and I

and a history un-visited

and is yet both of our now

and tomorrow;

made also,

among other things,

of a man called Sumedha,

history-born, 

tradition-resident,

of the soil, the waters

and a mountain

called Ritigala.

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