Starlight: Twilight

The stars that bore witness to your birth, make up your star sign;

It means that every nuance of your life, death, and your previous lives, are chartered-

Like the detailed maps guiding ships across vast oceans, by twilight,

Entrusted by sailors with their lives, since ancient times,

Silent sentinels standing unflinching witness to the happenings of human, animal & nature alike,

Undoubtedly, filling volumes with the detail of their observations of our lives-

Like scientists taking turns to obsessively record every little happening on a Petri dish ,

Adhering to strict control measures, at all times:

Observing cells form, meander & replicate, under microscopes,

Like watching a plant gradually grow from seed to flowering;

Measuring the passage of our centuries in milliseconds,

And charting the individual strands that makeup the course of our lives-

Creating an ever-evolving Muriel that belie the scary & beautiful human truth that is:

We can *all* change the stars of our lives!

Abattoir of Hope

Welcome to this place; the end of all hope;

May be heaven’s gates are permanently opened over this place,

I am a herbivore: I have harmed none, yet, I have been bred on a diet of grass and stale feed,

My mother works in the stocks, forced to make milk; her udders clamped to pumps draining her till all strength in her is gone,

My father was sent away soon after my half-siblings and I were born,

Some were taken from us at a young age to the Great House, from where none return

I was fed & fed, until my legs strain to keep up my bulky frame to rival a Belgian Blue,

And, I was led to join this final queue- from where (like all who preceded me) I do not expect to return;

In the stockades of a night the sorrowful ballad of fellow captives sing songs of a better place, a better time, a proud ancestry (is it a fever-fuelled dream or was it ever real?),

No matter, it’s all over now:

The final embrace of the Life-Stealer awaits me; he will make it quick & painless as possible, it is said among the kettled herds;

For a man used to killing for his daily bread is not, as a rule, habitually cruel,

Great Lord of the Plains, whatever I come back as, I have one small request:

Let it not be as human:

For, while they may make me into meat and eat of me, I would like not to be of them;

Admittedly, I have not seen them at their best;

But, whatever this might be-

I have truly come to abhor  their general casual neglect.

Dinoris Bandara: ‘Sudda’

Sudda be as sudda does,

(Like Jamis aiyya: is too clever by ‘alf!)

Understated or refreshingly  frank,

(Like Arlawathie, with a giant mortar and pestol to hand- tharaheng wage kotane!)

With a sense of entitlement,

(Like that uda gedara nona swanning around her husband’s brand new car!) ,

They think it’s a matter of class

(But what’s classy here, is not classy there: like a wesi here, is a light-weight wannabe there!)

Fanned & conditioned over many multiple generations,

(They have the aristocracy, the in-betweeners & the pretenders – and so do we!)

They exaggerate the achievements in their history, diminish the atrocities

(Like Mahinda aiyya, addressing the UN General Assembly- hari hari eka podak vadi!)

And taken root & hibernating next to the core of their supposedly unique identity!

(Just to reiterate: the war needed an end, and an end we got…so let’s move on!)

Creating a bit of an ego & languidity, that’ll rear its head given a chance

(Though they’ll admit to it, not!)

They are the beneficiaries of advantage afforded to them courtesy of history ,

(The foundation of their arrogance and presumptuous hypocrisy!)

Then, again, the world over, some things remain the same:

The young explore for they are naturally inclined to be fascinated (not deterred) by difference, which they regard as extraordinary;

(Only to realise, over time, things are not as unique nor as different as you first believed them to be!)

The old return home for they crave  stability and certainty,

(Only to find, home is not what they remembered it being!)

Whatever said and done be you suddu, kalu or neither:

There is more that unites than divides, the Sudda & You!