We don’t wish to be the politeness of an entry
To the Gratiaen Prize, a fashionable hidden from
Sight by a paperback cover. We just want
To be the Mills and Boon, a love that is uncensored
And willing to die a little. The sun betrays the
Pottu and the Sandalwood paste.
Caste casts a fishing barb and hook on the likeminded
In birth, but far in social striation.
In spite of it all, Ganesha makes an ambitious promise,
The God of obstacle proofing, of a lasting peace;
The half trunk of an elephant, that litters
Our collective conscience – how the south obstacled
A beautiful limestone paradise of lofty
Palmyrah trees, into a sap embittered by cyanide.
The sea cucumbers grow like furry oblong drums,
Oysters hide the furls of brilliant pearls.
Nothing can hide our oppression:
Like an artesian well pushed to the brink
Of rage and insanity, exploding out as a geyser,
As the sap of a Palmyra inflorescence.
Some toddy: an Ealam, that saw the butcher’s knife
As a pair of sterile umbilical scissors, severing
A strip of land, where elephants pass.
– Dilantha Gunawardana –
Leave a Reply