And the music won’t stop

Not by legislative edict

or court judgment

not by baton-charge or bullet

jackboot or barricade,

for music wafts over

and over again

voice bursts through gag

tenderness lifts finger,

clenches fist,

and the drum rolls of change

are resolutely pregnant,

births and rebirths,

so it was

and so it will be

thus says life-book

and love.  

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‘How did you come back from where the heart took you?’

If you are asking me,
I'd say this:

There were no name-boards

or landmarks
no road-sign, no map
for hearts
though contoured
slip through fingers
evade cartographer.
There's a price to pay
for heart:
salute love
and concede reason,
give up choice;
there's no agency.
Did not ask,
did not plan,
do not complain now;
there might have been mirror
but I didn't see;
there are people
and they never asked my name -
so i said 'conclude, as you will'.
There are no auspicious times,

not for heart,

not to my knowledge,
nor my ignorance,
as of now.

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

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Seen and heard

I saw moonlight bend

a tender leaf,

heard an ancient monument

murmur a prayer,

I breathed colours

footnoted in history books,

and noticed

in my passing

the play of the heroic with the vile,

the great heartedness that made a nation

and the carelessness

that makes for divorce.

I saw the hands of the clock move

making notes of this and that

without pausing to worship

things unimaginable

that somehow were true,

I saw the claws of time sprint

towards the sad rendezvous:

the end of time.

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

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Nidikumba

Caress

and I close my eyes

so you can see me

at my prettiest

my flowered innocence;

be harsh

and I will stab

yes,

with eyes closed;

I am life-lesson

a wayside gift

footnotable by footfall.

[Pic by Kumari Herath]

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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.

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

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Love-notes

I take word away from language letter from alphabet
punctuation from sentence
heart from life
and toss it out
for wind and time to craft.
And if she reads me somehow
what then of theory
of word and music,
grammar rules and such?

[From the collection 'Some texts are made of leaves']

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Itipiso Bhagava Arahang...

All things are transient

and thus the Enlightened One

journeyed through sansara

lifetime to lifetime

slaying the kleshas

one by one

spoke the word

showed path

was born

attained Enlightenment

and reposed

in the incomparable

parinirvana manchaka

and we resolve

in our impurities

to purify

to reflect

to affirm righteousness

as embedded in word

and example,

trip on our frailties

stray again and again

but return

to a singular avenue

eminently recognizable

by fragrance of text

and the colours of emancipation

striking and soft

in contrasts that blend

to everything and nothing.

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