Death ways

There are many ways
to say 'go'
and many ways to say 'no'
but each time
this no-go thing
is a new knifing
soft and delicate;
it's like freezing to death:
you don't feel it,
but still die.

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Revolution

She stands like the ripe grain

bathed in harvest sunlight

a golden smile dancing with the wind;

approaches at dusk

moving like the shadow of the hills

to take me into the night.

And my love is like water

now gushing down river

now halted at the gates

now spilling over

swirling around her feet

and disappearing underground

with monsoon-flight.

My love is a breeze

heaving sighs across valley

touching cheek

in the ‘cannot stay’ way;

and my love

is also the arc of the sickle

a dull pounding

separating grain from husk,

it is like the earth

keeping watch

drawing all things into its bosom.

[From the collection 'Epistles: 1984-1996']

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Oil-bullets

When you can’t take to sea

you take to the street

when you can’t take the sea

you take the street

and for all explanations

of agent provocateur

cat’s paws and tweaking of proportion

for all narratives of the law and lawlessness,

destabilization beyond provocation

all that matters is someone wrote a number

someone didn’t see the numbers

someone didn’t care

someone wondered but discounted

left one less head-count for enumerator

and emptied the universe of a little girl. 

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MITSI

There were pick-me-up times

in profusion

and so too ‘put-me-down’,

but in all the years of carrying

you did not know

(or did you, I wonder?)

who carried whom,

but I know,

girl of butterfly-winged thoughts

that I was more of let-you-down

than by-your-side,

For there were times

when my eyes were so full

of other tears

to see yours,

not even when they cascaded

fell from petal to petal

of your many booked universe.

I am ignorant, but this I know:

Amma varun pamanai mathu budu vanne.

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Kataragama Devale*

Faith and hope

the inevitable issue of our ignorance

and fallibility

scorned by know-all and ‘scientician’

in their knowing-all arrogance

and brave-fronted boasts

of infallibility,

are flower made

delicate things of the devout,

now in blue and now in red

one basket of flowers for the Kandasuridun

another for Vishnu

separate for ‘separability’ of petition

together for the convenience of petitioner

a construction

perhaps made by the better informed

the more humble

and in the final instant

the wise,

who can tell?

*Inspired by the photography of Hiranya Malwatta 

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Ehetuveva (Galgamuwa)

Here, still

territory is marked as always

serpent and elephant

human endeavour, frailty and faith

gentle engagement and thrift

this harsh and benevolent earth-piece

in the Vanni Hatpattuva

where rice came first and is held to the last

along with temple and word

etched in bodighara

contained in vee bissa

and the slow ending of endlessness.

[Inspired by the photography of W.A.M. Wijesinghe and published in The Nation, February 12, 2012]