Those lost yesterdays

Back in the land where dreams were re-found,
Dreaming of the voice, the familiar sound.
Your voice in the mornings, still re-sound,
Crowning my slumber, like a reverie new found.

How come this land now reminds me of loss,
Of people I've loved and seem to have lost?
Can't complaint, "TIME" is the big Boss;
No matter what,can't stop the clock!

But the memories..they hurt like mad,
All over the place, scattered like sand.
That's why it is so precious- this land,
Over here I feel, you still hold my hand...

G.C.Priyangwada Perera

The poem is a recollection of the days gone by. The poet who seems to have returned to the motherland after years in exile, once familiar terrain has now become strange. The memories of the poet are re-found in the land and they trace back to those lost years. By using a metaphor of land, the poet skillfully draws a matrix of memories.

Time has devoured these precious memories which now the poet perceives as scattered sand. The poem deals with the theme of loss of inheritance and anxieties experienced by an expatriate when he or she returns to the motherland. -Indeewara Thilakarathne

A bleak future

One sunny morning
in a refugee camp up northeast
I heard a soft young voice counting
One Two Three Four and Five
again and again and again
forming a sweet refrain.
Compelled by its haunting tone
I followed it to a makeshift hut.
To my surprise and delight
I found a beautiful baby girl
lying on the floor
counting the toes of her right foot.
Alas! her left foot was missing
blown off in a landmine explosion
which also killed her young mother.
The innocent child smiled with me
and continued to chant her sweet refrain
blissfully unaware of her cruel fate.
I tried to console her distraught father
promising to help his baby girl
with a program to rehabilitate her.
That evening I returned home
with a heavy heart
oblivious to a gorgeous sunset.
The sweet refrain,
still ringing in my ears,
had b'ecome a doleful dirge,
July 25, 2010

Chitra Premaratne-Stuiver

The poem is on a girl in a refugee camp. Through a single incident, the poet questions the repercussions of war and the bleak future of the nation. -Indeewara