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Rajiva Wijesinha – Creative Writing

Tag Archives: Dry Season: Riverside

Mirrored Images – 10

06 Friday Dec 2013

Posted by rajivawijesinha in Mirrored Images

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Tags

A T Dharmapriya, BUT EVERY GULL IS NOT CALLED JONATHAN L, Cheran, Dry Season: Riverside, I’m A Man Because You Are A River, Lal Hegoda, Richard de Zoysa, S Pathmanathan

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dbooster/4119172972/

LAL HEGODA

 

I’m A Man Because You are A River

 

On this river bank

in a most pleasant seat

under a cool canopy

of Kumbuk trees

I will rest awhile

for a brief respite in life

 

Here and there in the high canopy

caressed by long fingers

red leaves rustle in the breeze

they move and show

the blue sky in a floral pattern.

its shadow falling on the water

breaking into a thousand little fragments.

 

When the sun’s brassy rays

flow along with the river

the jeweled lights

float in the soft darkness beneath the canopy

the grandeur is beyond words

and only a poet can sing of it.

Free from other ‘samsaric bonds’

my mind falls in love

 

As with a language so familiar

I understand what you say so coyly

smiling like the foam

as you go winding along

amidst the rocks

breaking into a symphony

 

I will throw away the watch in my hand

I will throw away the shoes on my feet.

Leaving you where else can I go?

As I shed my clothes

one now and then another

I see my own body’s image

like a dark shadow

 

Because I am a man

and you are a river

let’s melt softly

in a loving embrace.

Is there another way?

 

Translated by A T Dharmapriya

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Bridging Connections – Poems of Violence and Suffering

18 Sunday Sep 2011

Posted by rajivawijesinha in Bridging Connections

≈ Comments Off on Bridging Connections – Poems of Violence and Suffering

Tags

Avvai, Bridging Connections, BUT EVERY GULL IS NOT CALLED JONATHAN L, Dry Season: Riverside, I’m A Man Because You Are A River, Lal Hegoda, Mahakavi, National Book Trust, Poetry, R Cheran, Richard de Zoysa

In 2007, the National Book Trust published a collection of Sri Lankan Short Stories I had edited, entitled ‘Bridging Connections’. Typically, it has not sold well in this country. This is a pity, because it also introduced stories written originally in Sinhala and Tamil. It would have been good for at least the English speaking who did not know one or other of those languages to appreciate thoughts they otherwise could not register.

In India the book has done very well, and is being translated into all the other official Indian languages. I have since been asked to compile a similar collection of poetry, a task I was more worried about, given the much greater knowledge required to judge the merits of poetry in languages in which one is not a literary expert. However, I have received much assistance from friends, and strangers to whose kindness I am indebted.

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