Memories

My sister

Bashir Sakhawarz

Through the thickness of distance,
Through the walls of mountains,
Through the depth of oceans,
Last night I touched you
I touched your pain
They became mine.

There is no meaning in children smile
Flowers grow, but are they flowers?
Children smile, but are they smiling?
Without your children
Without your garden
Flowers and smile do not grow
Without your hand,
Life delivers emptiness

When I departed
You whispered “take care”
Have you taken care?
Have you built a dream?
Have you not seen crashed hopes?
Have you avoided disasters?
Disasters are in the air
They grow in your garden
They fall off the trees.

The murder of a writer

Basil Fernando

(A tribute to Lasantha Wickramatunga, a well known Sri Lankan journalist and editor who was assassinated on January 8, 2009.)

I do not cry
for Lasantha
my tears are for you
Lanka, Lanka

Of the real ugliness
he wrote
his death
told it all

Surrounding a car
gunmen and guards
hunted a man
and revealed the nation

speech connects citizens
silence kills the nation
Lanka, Lanka
death now is your game.

Mahawweli,Kelani,Walawe
polutted rivers
carries to the seas
your shame

Shed not Lanka
crocodile tears
have remorse
for letting your children die.

You held the gun
you killed the pen
Lanka, Lanka you made
the land go barren

I do not cry
for Lasantha
my tears are for you
Lanka, Lanka

Tearful poems of a mother

W M Gayathri Priyakari Gunasekara

The day you were conceived in my womb as my first
A thousand flowers bloomed in my mind, my son
The first day your milk-mixed eyes saw the world
In my mind the Poson full moon appeared
When with childish smiles you were walking in front of the house
And in my warmth you cuddled and dived into the dream world,
There was no one so fortunate as myself on the earth
Hundreds and thousands of times my mind murmured in joy
My son grew in intelligence and good habits
Who did not see my golden son’s value?
Though not rough and hard, you, my son, appeared a hero
Who then didn’t see my son’s value?
As the Asela moon was rising, murderers entered my home
Despite thousands of pleas to the heart, away they took my son
Hearing the fire of the gun’s barrel, my mind went far away
To which world was my golden son taken away?

Translated by Basil Fernando

A Son’s Tale

Basil Fernando

It was a crowd of twenty or so
Many not so young and some old
One among the not so young rose
This tale he told

Blame not for what I say
I am worried and this I thought
I should loud say
For years now it bothers me

My father had father
Him my father dearly loved
Humble gentle a man was he
I was told

To a landlord’s family
A tenant farmer was he
Working hard earned but little
With respect he served the masters

Hurt in his heart he hid
To his son he said
Never a tenet father be
Get away from here and study

To a distant place my father fled
With someone’s help books he read
To make my story short
After study some fortune he amassed

During that long time
Of his father he did hear
That the master revenging son’s departure
Had beaten his father dear

Some revenge my father had in mind
Brought lands next to the masters
Furious was this landed lot
Seeing servant’s son their equal

This way some years had fled
A day when we all were gone
He was left alone
In the big house now he owned

Some from the old master house
Like wolf had enter and pounced
Beating him hard shouting words so foul
Thinking him dead had happily left

Returning home I saw my father dear
Thinking him dead was full of tears
With neighbours help to hospital went
Found him unconscious but not dead

Doctors did him well treat
His heart did better beat
All the story he did with names repeat
Police and lawyers were upbeat

Here my friends my worries start
My father in fact breathed his last
In court three were sentenced to death
I must say, I had my revenge

Now do not blame when you this hear
Give me your forgiving ear
When my father was still not dead
Here is something that doctor said

It is possible to prolong father’s life a little
But a serious surgery he need
Risk there is that his memory
He may fully lose

I loved my father and his father too
Wanted him alive with memory or not
But with honestly let me say
A lawyer I did consult

Briefly this is what he said
Your father had told what happened
If he dies or live to tell his tale
To death or jail those villains will go

If he lives but cannot tell his tale
I asked this lawyer and this he said
Then these villains will free go
A profound problem in me arose

Whole night sleepless I thought
Justice to him, his father, I did want
But to let him go
That I did not want

Tell what you wish or forgive if you can
The risk of loss of his memory
I did not take
Soon peacefully he was gone

Now my secret I have said
Not so old man said and sat
There was silence all around
No word any one uttered.

Is my son also sleeping under the mara tree?

W P Ruwani Wanniarrhchi

My little son,
I can wait
Till I am tired, seated at the doorstep of the house
Inside the lonely mind,
Kiri kokku (white storks) are crying
Come back home again,
My little son
It is to erase the tears of the leaking roof
Of the wattle and daub home from which my son flew
To the field of letters
Who there, aney (Oh, my goodness), told my son
To break mahamera (heaven’s) walls?

In the midst of fires,
The irony I do not feel in the world
Of the milk pot that moved in the river
Is my son also sleeping
Under the mara tree?

Warm tears fill both my eyes
Now, son, who am I to feed
The warm rice cooked on the three cooking stones?
Come, even in a dream,
And wave your hand
I still have more tears in my eyes
To shed