Muted Heart
Like our pet bird flew away for good, in the sky blue
You have left the village, without a semblance of clue
There is no animosity either in my heart or soul
Even if your mind doesn’t respond to my memory’s call.
Wonder whether you remember the childhood days
The delight we had with village folks of the same age
Roaming about the village over, as birds of a feather
With nothing in particular, whatsoever, for us to bother
A few years hence, you obliged to the parents’ call
for matrimony, to have joined a partner life long
I think It is our destiny that seals our fate with our birth
Probably the way we envisaged in an earlier birth
Now that our village is devoid of your moon face
The paddy fields will mature but with a slower phase
Let me be complacent to bear it as an issue bygone
wishing you a prosperous life that will last long
The fact remains you don’t have a fault of your own
For the short coming, was but in me and me alone
For being unable to divulge the desire my heart born
To embrace your warmth as loving wife of my own
When I met you during your adolescent age
On and off, at the river edge in our quaint village
May be my, muted heart, had had no courage
To tell, that I wanted you as my partner in marriage
Words: S.S.J. Fernando
Nature Please!
No need notes to sing cuckoo
No need steps to dance peacock
No need grammar of language to speak sea waves
No need coaching to swim fingerlings No need water to live camel
No need electricity to twinkling star
No need paints to blooming flowers
No need key to rounding Earth
No need to feeding to lion
No need bricks to build ideas.
But!
Each and every one must need,
True love to protect nature.
Words: Gunaretne Gunarubesh
Covid-19 pandemic
Did you emerge to this planet by yourself?
Or, did you evolve with the aid of human beings?
These pertinent questions would remain unanswered, until
The world finds a lasting remedy for it. (Virus of individualism)
The devastation caused to human lives is immense.
Caused without rhyme or reason.
Precious life is taken away suddenly
This was meant to last for sometime
But, it is snatched without any warning, only symptoms are visible.
What a cruel way of snatching life
Disguised like a thief no discrimination shown towards young or old
Are snatched oblivious of the fact
The manner humans emerged from the womb of their mothers.
Spare us so that people may enjoy their lives until they fade away.
Fertility of life is exposed by your sinister action
Creation is challenged and the entire existence is threatened
Leave us alone and you go away is my humble pleading
You have made us Prisoners virtually, brought down to our knees confined to a house.
Movements restricted, employment affected, with economy too shaken
Otherwise, we would be compelled to live languishing in a time of worry, anxiety and
Uncertainty
By walking through the valley of the shadow of death...
Words: J. Camillus Fernando
Holocaust 1944
To my mother
I do not know
In what strange far off earth
They buried you;
Nor what harsh northern winds
Blow through the stubble,
The dry, hard stubble
Above your grave.
And did you think of me
That frost-blue December morning,
Snow-heavy and bitter,
As you walked naked and shivering
Under the leaden sky,
In that last moment
When you knew it was the end,
The end of nothing
And the beginning of nothing,
Did you think of me?
Oh I remember you, my dearest,
Your pale hands spread
In the ancient blessing
Your eyes bright and shining
Above the candles
Intoning the blessing
Blessed be the Lord....
And therein lies the agony,
The agony and the horror
That after all there was no martyrdom
But only futility -
The futility of dying
The end of nothing
And the beginning of nothing.
I weep red tears of blood.
Your blood.
Words: Anne Ranasinghe
[The lines “Pale hands 0. Lord” is a reference
to the Jewish prayer over the Sabbath
candles, traditionally performed by the
mother in the home.]
From Holocaust Poetry, ed. Hilda Schiff
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995), 142–143.
About the poet
Anne Ranasinghe, born on October 2, 1925, as Anneliese Katz in Essen, Germany, is an internationally renowned poet from Sri Lanka. Escaping from Nazi Germany to England, she married a Sri Lankan professor and became a citizen of Sri Lanka in 1956. Although primarily a poet, she has also published short stories, essays, and translations. Her works have been broadcast on radio and published in seventeen countries and translated into nine languages.