The soil slips and slides to obey the water’s orders
A mad scramble for shelter while some dance in the rain
The rain thrashes like a bird set free, flapping sodden wings
Until it plunges to its own death with a flash of lightning
As the staccato softens to a symphony
Of after-rain sloshing and animal cries
IT’S A HARD LIFE
One meagre rice-and-lentils meal a day
Doesn’t keep the great hunger away
It just helps keep development at bay
Bread, coconut and milk-powder prices rise
Nobody listens to all the pleas and the cries
Everyone’s faith in justice thus steadily dies
A bucket of water a day’s not enough
To wash away sweat on skin so rough
Getting and staying clean is now tough
There’s cheating for school admissions
And university strikes hamper ambitions
Is there any sense in educational visions?
Police check-points every hundred metres
A sure sign that the peace process teeters
While people pay a fortune for petrol litres
Bomb blasts and war atrocities daily shock
To foreign countries the elite hence flock
While politicians herd their money stock
Children are abducted and lives are lost
It’s always the innocent who pay the cost
In the terrorists’ heart there’s eternal frost
You beg, you steal, you commit a crime
To bring your family an additional dime
Choking on the government talk’s slime
People live in a paradise that feels like hell
Are ever scared of a police officer’s yell
Oh, put an end to war’s and injustice’s spell
Don’t let a nation drink from misery’s well
Make this once more a place to happily dwell
NAMO NAMO MATHA
Mother Lanka - we salute thee,
But the salute is lately only military
Plenteous in prosperity, thou,
Plenty also the terror that seems to grow
Beauteous in grace and love,
Find everything that you’re dreaming of
Laden with corn and luscious fruit
Meals nutritious and tasty, like they should
And fragrant flowers of radiant hue,
Of the war’s horrors nature gives us no clue
Giver of life and all good things,
And of all the struggles human life brings
Our land of joy and victory,
It still maintains some kind of colonial glory
Receive our grateful praise sublime,
For our country seems to be in its prime
Lanka, we worship thee.
Thou gavest us knowledge and truth,
But forgotten is the barely functioning truce
Thou art our strength and inward faith,
Ruined is our children’s once promising fate
Our light, divine and sentient being,
Living in paradise is such a marvellous thing
Breath of life and liberation,
Four different religions in perfect integration
Grant us, bondage free, inspiration,
For a brighter future people turn to emigration
Inspire us forever,
Peace, we’ll find it not sooner, not later, never
In wisdom and strength renewed,
The charms of Asian beauty can be viewed
Ill-will, hatred, strife all ended,
But these days they are stubbornly defended
In love enfolded, a mighty nation
Prepares with bomb blasts its own cremation
Marching onward, all as one,
Many a good deed is admittedly still done
Lead us, Mother, to fullest freedom,
Hopefully fighting will one day be overcome
*The lines in italic are from the English translation of the Sri Lankan national anthem.
TRADING TRADITIONS
Trading treasured traditions
For treacherous trendy trivia
Has become a bad habit here
In itself almost another tradition
Added to a trunk-load full of drama
Being dramatically embedded
In thousands of years of yearning
Embroidered with the trash of tourists
Who bring themselves and their own
Treason masked as Western traditions
Enamouring natives and locals
With what is alien and everything but
Unalienable – dare to say untouchable
Thus traditions are traded in for
Trash TV and TV trash – recycled –
Japanese cars and Indian trishaws – remodelled –
Fashion fads and futile attempts – ridiculous!
Tricky things traded in for traditions
As soon as the first home for elders
Replaces the cosy home shared with elders
As soon as the first child day-care
Replaces the daily care for a child
As soon as the first foreign Sri Lankan in Sri Lanka
Replaces the typical Sri Lankan in a foreign country
You can be certain that even here
Traditions are traded – almost traditionally!
WHEN IT RAINS, IT POURS
When it rains, it pours
Drips down to the floors
Drums a staccato on the window pane
Feels like you won’t ever get dry again
It trickles through the gaps and the cracks
Seeps right in, leaving conspicuous tracks
Creeps through holes you never knew were there
Makes worms and birds pop up everywhere
Slithers through the garden like a snake in the mud
Tickles the rose bushes, kisses a glistening bud
Soaks the insatiable soil like a generous lover
Uses a fine spray of mist to linger and hover
Bends tender grass blades to dance to its tune
Flashes like a startling downpour, gone too soon
Dances on the roof top, flamenco in high heels
Invades all locks and burst through all seals
It drip-drops from the ceiling unnervingly
Dampens the flowery wallpaper artistically
Leaves splotches and patches here and there
Squeezes in where no-one else would dare
Sloshes in tins and overflows in the tank
Makes everything smell earthy and dank
It comes as a monsoon or a drizzle or a shower
Reminds you you’re at the mercy of nature’s power
It laps up everything with unquenchable thirst
Moistens like a lulling blanket, a sudden outburst
Threatens with dark clouds and thunder
Tears the sky and the crowds asunder
Looms on the horizon, an omen, a sign
It’s more manifold than words can define
Smoothens cracked surfaces with a polishing shine
Covers every object in a natural glitter so fine
Adorns the lawn with pearls and droplets so round
Lingers in the background, a reminder, a sound
Gushes in the gutter, runs down the drain
Makes all attempts at drying be in vain
It claims the roads in a cascading stream
Carries power much bigger than it may seem
Runs in rivulets down wood, metal, and glass
Makes people seek shelter helter-skelter en masse
Ruffles feathers, waters plants, ploughs the field
A force to be reckoned with, it makes you yield
Flows gracefully whichever way it wants
Sometimes it flirts, sometimes it flaunts
Taun
ts in torrents you can’t escape
Caresses umbrella, raincoat and cape
It drenches the rich and the poor in equal measure
Comes and goes now and then at its own leisure
It’s sometimes a burden, sometimes pleasure
A curse to some, while to others a treasure
It bathes and cleanses, nurtures and nourishes
Daunts with deluges until everything flourishes
Makes you fall in and out of love, and go insane
The pouring rain, the pouring rain
MULTI-FACED LANKA
Like a goddess with more than one head and several arms
Multi-faced Lanka is a land of many characters and charms
Kandy, the pensive queen, on her misty mountain throne
Keeps a benevolent eye on the lake and sacred tooth relic
Reluctantly tempting, an ancient city where secrets lie buried
Colombo, a boisterous youth dressed in the latest fashion
Bedazzles with glittering towers, surprisingly out-going
A noisy mirror-and-smokes illusion where worlds collide
Galle, the charming bride waving coyly from the south
Hails with heritage, caught in her own private dreams
Of the beaches and parties her unmarried cousins enjoy
Jaffna, a wizened widow proud of her scars and her stamina
Casts her eye longingly on India yet remains, loyal to a fault
A beacon of hope, an educational hub, always out of reach
Nuwara Eliya, the eccentric brother who’s worked abroad
With English cottages, tea plantations and morning frost
An ambassador, a diplomat where two ethnicities blend
Trincomalee, playfully pretty daughter coming into her own
Where surfing meets brightly coloured shalwars and spices
And new beginnings can almost be tasted among touristy tips
ANIMALISM
A dozen kinds of ants
Crawl into your pants
One kind of roaches
Causes you reproaches
A myriad of mosquitoes
Leave you in itchy throes
Spiders that jump and bite
Fear them with all your might
More than enough creepy crawlies
Good fodder for horror stories
In a temple you find elephants
And worship them with folded hands
Elephants in their own orphanages
Even the wild ones not in cages
Tree trunks carried in elephant trunks
Majestic beasts swaying like drunks
Tusker decorated in green, red and gold
The mystery of elephants is centuries old
Elephants labouring, does it look wrong?
Grand animals, intelligent and strong
A dozen kinds of ants
A weariness it grants
One kind of roaches
How terribly it encroaches
A myriad of mosquitoes
Makes you wriggle your toes
Spiders that jump and bite
Long-legged, hairy, a fright
More than enough creepy crawlies
That will leave you full of worries
In some lagoons you find reptiles
That rise and hunt with the tides
Ancient dinosaur-like creatures
With defiantly enormous features
Yes, crocodiles can here be found
Their tails can knock you to the ground
A monitor lizard in the back garden
Sluggish and old but knowing no pardon
Antique giant turtles at coasts as well
Leave you under nature’s wild spell
Ants and roaches, mosquitoes and spiders
Meet the lion-tamers and elephant-riders
Creepy crawlies turn into a constant plague
Perception of wilderness is never left vague
This is a country with its own animalism
And animal magnetism
WAR
When limbs are torn from bodies like papers from a pad
And the smell of rotten corpses makes everyone go mad
Revenge is taken with an eye for an eye, a mum for a dad
When bodies are torn apart and lives are torn asunder
Atrocities of the most horrible kind kill any sense of wonder
Ravens feed on the dead, among dark clouds and thunder
When a whole island shakes under the force of explosions
A nation’s heart is smashed into tiny bullet-sized portions
Roaring military planes mess with people’s minds, emotions
When howling sirens and thundering gunfire always resound
Any kind of solace, even in music, is so hard to be found
Rhapsodies are now bloody, no longer just bohemian sound
When school buildings are in ruins and futures are at stake
And sleepless people at daytime into a new nightmare awake
Raising a child without hope makes a mother’s heart quake
When the war of child soldiers and suicide bombers consists
And little to no hope for some peaceful solution exists
Reaping mass karma of the unwholesome kind persists
When foreigners leave the country and the UN seeks flight
A lost nation has to stand up as one and fight a lonely fight
Ravaged by war, the country is a terrible, sadly familiar sight
BE WHO YOU ARE
Like a tree
That faces the sun and braces the wind, too
Bending and swaying without snapping in two
Be determined but not unrelenting in whatever you do
Like a flower that offers its scent voluntarily to all
Ever so delicate yet colourful and standing tall
Like the rain
That pours from the sky like a blessing in disguise
To cleanse, nurture virtue and wash away vice
Be wise in your dealings with the good and the bad
Like the moon
That lights up the night with a calming glow
To chase away nightmares and make dreams grow
Be self-contained, but contribute to the greater good
Like the lotus
That rises proudly above the filthy mud
And unfolds to glory a pure, sacred bud
Be aware of your surroundings but untainted by them
Like a mountain
That cares not for conquerors of its peak
And rises above the rest without crushing the weak
Be confident, but don’t have confidence in all
Like a bird
That sings with abandon and spreads its wings to explore
Knowing when to glide, to rest, to plummet and to soar
Be mindful of your goals and how to reach them
Like a cloud
That wanders the heavens in all shapes and sizes
To store water and bring shade when the heat rises
Be receptive and flexible to whatever life brings
Like a fish
That knows its rightful place is deep down
To rule evolution soundlessly, without a crown
Be true to your nature, but swim with the current
Like a stone
That some see as precious and some as dirt
Minding its own business and knowing its worth
Be who you are, whatever others may say
MOTHERS
Masters of all trades
Offerers of solace
Thinkers of deep thoughts
Healers of deep wounds
Earners of non-given rewards
Receivers of reproach
Savers of lives
Makers of a living
Openers of eyes
Teachers of survival skills
Helper
s in need of help
Empresses of the household
Riders of the storm
Soothsayers par excellence
Mentors of future mothers
Organizers of chores
Tutors of good manners
Holders of hands
Enders of wars
Rulers of snacks
Silencers of doubts
Managers of everything
Oracles of truths
Tamers of lions
Heroines without names
Explainers of mysteries
Raisers of nations
Sufferers in silence
Like Mother Lanka
The amma who gives athma vishvasaya
And receives nothing in return
A bearer of burdens
A light in the dark
*The words in italic are Sinhalese for “mother” and “self-confidence”
IT’S TIME
It’s time, the stars will realign
Please stay strong, you’re going to be fine
Don’t doubt yourself, don’t wait for a sign
It’s now, claim this moment, oh Lanka mine
It’s time, take a leap of faith
To sink the ship you need to bite the bait
Don’t waver, put an end to the long wait
You’ve been ready for so long, don’t hesitate
It’s time, sound the bugle and hunt
Face the music, jump and master the stunt
Don’t weaken, push onwards with a grunt
Let your light shine, refuse to be shunned
It’s time, take to the stage and act
You’re unique and invincible, it’s a fact
Take a breath, brace yourself for impact