An ode for today

by Malinda Seneviratne

Yesterday the proclamation of independence,
The cloud burst on drought-ridden histories,
The feverish composition of anthem, the dance
of peacocks,
The sunrise greeted by a 21-gun salute
The colouring of hope and the overflowing of
milk and honey.

Yesterday the unthinkable embrace of leader and led
The wild humour of illusion and the waiver
of colonial debts
The return of monarch in tie and coat and
Old Spiced tongue
The manufacture of skies and winds for
spider-web kites.

Yesterday the re-discovery and reaffirmation
of chronicle,
The voice of the fresco and the fragrance of manure,
The tilling of new lands, the proliferation
of blueprints
The drowning in utopia and the flushing of guilt.

Yesterday the happy collapse of contradiction
The veneration of the Master, the transcription
of dreams
The confusion of past with future, the banishment
of moment,
Yesterday the night of the ancestor the resurrection
of blood.

Yesterday the extrapolations from 'if only',
the sigh of nostalgia,
The comfort zone of the weak, the bugbear
of the rootless,
But today, the dissolution of ideology, the
scrambling of agenda
A reality, a threat and the waiving of all
options but this: fight.

Yesterday the sowing of master plans, the
postponement of love
The smirk of a money-lender and the chagrin
of the gambler,
But today, the unwavering gaze upon a land
and a people,
A tear drop that bites and a war thrust down
your throat.

Yesterday the chanting of pirith, the Christmas
party, the Call to Prayer,
The surfacing of the eternal verities, the
illusory power of argument,
But today, the dismembered arm, the frozen gaze,
an orphan and a widow
The burning of boats and the confiscation of option;
the struggle.

For there is a thief and a murderer at the gate,
and blood on the walls
Thief within and a thousand conditionalities
locked to benevolence
A nation, a heritage, a people who have tilled and
will till
The ploughing of dreams and the planting of
intoxicants.

There is a child wearing a capsule of death, a
mother robbed of words
There is a chant, a shout, an order: forget, forget,
forget!
And there is ash that rises, blood that fertilises
and there is memory
A nation, yes, a people, yes, and 500 years
looking down, waiting, waiting.

What is this proposal mouthed in so many
languages? Succumb to tyranny!
What is this design? Restore the order of the earth,
as defined by a sycophant!
What are these movements, this to and fro across
a parliament floor?
Return, return to that other life which was death,
the construction of
cemeteries!

Sepulchral memories don't die, they run down
waterways, hang from trees,
They are made of a constitution that entrapped
a nation and saluted a thief,
And the earth resists, not to defend a President,
but a one-chance-in-hell,
Yesterday, a smile, tomorrow too, perhaps a
smile, but today the
moment of sobriety.

Tomorrow perhaps a different time, a landscape
differently contoured,
The support for the necessary impeachment,
the dethroning of tyrants,
The investigation of pilferage, the evicting of clowns,
The restoration of law and order, and the
beatification of the saintly.

Tomorrow the watering of gardens, the
cohabitation of enemies,
The softening of anger, and the harvesting of
fallow fields once again
The gathering of dreams, weaving of tapestries
made of rice and rain
The banishment of petty politicking and the
moment of serious debate.

Tomorrow a parliament, a government and an
opposition,
A responsible media and newspapers using the
ink of neutrality,
Tomorrow a time for restraint, a time for
indulgence and a time to let go,
Today, a nation besieged that must unshackle,
must struggle and overcome.

Tomorrow, a time for the political joke and the
odd cartoon,
The scoring of debating points, the parry and
thrust of nation-making,
Tomorrow the time to change faces, the
showering votes of no-confidence,
Today, the hour of the resolute heart that fights
the intruder.

Today a historical juncture, the decision to be slave
or citizen,
To turn back and spit upon the dead solider, the
tears
Of mothers, children, lovers, friends and everyone,
everyone
In whose name they died, they died, they died.

Yesterday, the century of beginning, growth and
wonderment,
Tomorrow, a return to pilgrimage and worship
and romance,

Today, the chanting of *pirith*, the emphasis
on nation and nationality,
Today, a tyrant at the gate and a people encircled:
today, the fight.