Lost lines

Those things that don't arrive

on demand,

things that stop fingers

and interrupt beautiful stories:

where they went

and where they go

who knows

who will tell?

They may break into words or song

crumble into syllable and dust

creep into conversations

as filler or frill,

but lost lines

return in disguise

alleviate other headaches

fill spaces differently made

energize.

Don’t believe,

but flip the question and ask

‘where did those other lines

that came without saying

and wrote themselves almost

where did they come from

which lyrics or love notes

did they escape from?’

All lines are lost

and words are people

looking for the once-familiar

but gone

perhaps forever. 

Lost lines are consolation prizes

in competitions no one ever wins. 

Ode(s) to reflection

And it was recommended

by sages of long ago

from long-ago lands

in long-ago tongues

that silence reveals 

what clutter clouds

that true reflection

obtains from stillness

within stillness

within stillness still. 

[Inspired by the photography of Tharindu Amunugama] 

Flowers that kiss

Fade they will

even the most beautiful

of beautiful flowers --

but wilt is an eye-trick

in a tryst with time;

as long as gaze is older than gazed

as long as gaze is shaded by love

time conspires to conceal decay

re-name it in an alphabet

of changing hue and texture

as perfumes that grow sweeter

as they lose their baby freshness

and if all this failed

there’s the one redeemer:

a flower that lifts lips

and with one kiss

make poor the thousand kisses

of lips and gaze

received

and as for me

as recipient of poverty-gift  

I tell myself:

'you can die now'.  

Faith above politics

In other times
contested terrain
lapped at
by tongues
that won’t hold,
food for rhetorician;
but Kachchativu
on Feast Day
recovers
and notions of divinity
lift
and free the faithful
from tongue and cheek:
blessed they are
for in that silencing
by prayer
land becomes land
and identities merge
and disappear.



[Inspired by the photography of Chandana Wijesinghe]

Truth

Not in the gaze
of half-closed eyes
not in postural balance
not in symmetry
not in craft or crafting
the collapse of dimensions
not in any of these
and other ephemerality
and yet embedded
in the ways of clarity
the path to which
The Word describes.




[Inspired by the line drawings of Gamini Abeykoon]

These other children

One mother
many children
each lined and colored
by karmic DNA
of the natural kind
to have and hold
to open and close
delight and sadden
flower and perish --
a passing glance
at sun, rain and wind
and then
in maternal embrace
recline.

Parallel Lives

You and I
are colored,
I as white
and you as black
one an embroidery
and the other its reverse
my world and yours
one made
one making
one asserted
the other not
and so we get to
‘Squeaky Clean’
one to clear
one to walk
each to his or her
life corner
and life ways
by the other
unneeded
apparently.