Dumbara

Smoke-laden land
do you remember
our long ago
so much younger than yours:
first wary days
unease flowering into ownership
a natural death by drowning
at a time that did not foresee
that other time of fire-death
and water-funeral? 

Do you footnote and forget
the wrong word that buried love
and the right act that invited blow
upon blow upon blow,
and just archive the sweeping signatures
of moment and madness?

I remember innocent love

and the names, faces, words
of those who are beyond photograph
the gymnasium that’s no more
and the ground that hasn’t aged.

I trace back from now-face
those names that were resident,
but you,
what do you hold
in your mist-clothed heart
at dawn,
in stone-gaze afternoon
and firefly night?

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Another ode to offering

I don’t know if I can call them ants,
the insects that prowl on petal
and who at touch of finger
or eye (I sometimes believe)
creep into stem and colour;
there was a time
of brush and wash
and guiltless placement
on dashboard
pujemi buddhang kusumena nena
but in these perishing times
I’ve moved afar
from insect scrutiny
and rinse
and from that meditation
to this:
paanaathipatha veramani sikkha padang samaadiyaami.

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For Vraie

I could gaze and gaze

at the contour of eye,

the perked eyelash
write epics of those blessed circles
your eyes caress,
could move too
obtain difference
in angle and light
even through un-blink and steadfast gaze
but then again,
if you turned, or just moved eye
not to let gaze-trajectories meet
but just a minute ‘towards’,
I would weep,
I am certain.

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Ballad of stork and fish

It’s swoop and kill time,

hold in beak, swallow and fly;

but taking has names and names,

nutritional requirement

Darwinist truism

natural control of population

elegant lens-capture

neat ‘lay-outing’

poetized gathering,

but for victim, though,

it’s small talk come too late

just ‘was’ and ‘is no more’.

[Inspired by the photography of Rukshan Abeywansha]

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Devotees at Ruwanweliseya

These faces

that of child, man and woman,

carrying karmic signature

devotional intent

talisman of learned history

and unconscious genetic strain

of event, personality and metaphor,

are they the same mix,

more or less,

of those who came before

and will they come again

and again

until final erasure?

These footsteps

silenced by chant and babble

are they different in texture

sansaric print

weight of veneration

in blend of tenderness

and callosity,

as those of the first flower-giver?

And the flowers,

were they similarly fragranced

century to century

through blood and marriage,

rupture and benevolence?

Did the flame enlighten then

in eruption, flicker and death

as it does or does not now? 

There is time and time

heart, sinew and thought

the play of the kleshas

resolve and resignation

a sil-suwanda connecting millennia

like pirith and thread,

break and continuity;

unities defying description,

as it was

and will be.

[from the collection 'Some texts are made of leaves,' shortlisted for the Gratiaen Award 2011]

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