We Lost
One of Our Great Contemporary Poet
S.VILVARATNAM
Today!!!
(09.12.2006)
Not to usual Unidentified Gunmen
But to unidentified illness!
A WORLD IN A FISTFUL OF SAND
By: S.Vilvaratnam
My son who was playing with sand
Came running up to me
And thrusting a fistful of sand
Into my palm
Ran off
Strewing the blossom of a smile.
The wet sand chilled
My still opened hand
A world blossomed
In the fistful of sand
And a white embryo sprouting wings
Began to toddle down it.
A ‘mini’ state in the compound
Where proudly I reigned my voice, my scepter,
My forefathers rejoicing at gatherings,
A full-blooded civilization, a way of life
Strode along the fistful of sand.
Today before our very eyes
Shared everything lies
Gouged is the land
We dangled in the void,
Our laboured breath hardnes,
Sticks in the throat.
Is such respiration life?
The sand in the fist
Trickles down
In the momentary weakness of memory.
‘Will everything slip out of our grasp?’
My troubled glance
Falls on my son
Playing with sand.
Once again my eyes glisten
Under a mango tree
That has put forth new shoots
Lovingly he kneads the sand,
Builds a temple, worships it.
Stoops, picks up handful of sand
And smears it, holy-ash-like, on his forehead.
Straightening up he sprinkles some verses
From the thevarams*
Much moved, transfixed I stood
Resolved to await
His hands’ action in Time.
*thevarams- devotional songs composed by saints of Hindu religion in praise of Hindu Gods.
(Translated by: A.J. Canagaratna)
THIRD EYE (THIRD ISSUE) DECEMBER 1994.
Note:
The funeral ceremony will take place in Colombo on Monday the 11th of December 2006.
Third Eye Local Knowledge and Skill Activists Group.
