The sky is thundering,midnight splits with lightning’s crack.I stand beneath a lonely streetlamp,its pale glow spilling over me.As always—this is my place,this is my profession. A stranger comes, his eyes weighing me.He asks the price,I answer plain.He scoffs, says it is too high,and bargains as if my body were cloth in a market stall. I…
The mighty rains are pouring down.The Menik Ganga swells around.To Kataragama,The monsoon season now has come.The Kavadi dancers fill the shrine.Haro Hara, Haro Hara. Clouds collide and break apart,Lightning splits the darkened sky.This is the dwelling of the Six-Faced Lord on high.The monsoon season now has come.In Panama and Kumana, peacocks dance and proudly cry.Haro…
O River of the Sky, tell me now,Reveal the true line of the Sinhala kings somehow.Declare that long before Great King Mahāsammata came,This land was our inheritance, our ancestral claim. Beyond our own solar system’s light,To Akaniṭṭha Brahma Realm shining bright,If any living being dwells so far away,Our shelter once embraced them on a distant…
Farmer, behold my little son,One day he will grow to eat rice from the earth.O God, look—my child sleeps in peace,Soft as the evening breeze. Son, do you dream of being cradledIn the lap of gentle Malokudevi?Do you see the Bodhi leaves swaying in the night wind,Glistening softly under the silver moonlight? Do you dream…
The fallen matalus of the coconut treesScatter gently upon the path of the Buddha,Easing the weariness of His sacred feet.He walks in all four directions,Seeking those wise enough to cross beyond samsara.Still, I feel His presence—Upon the distant hills, within the nearby forest. The Buddha arrives,The Buddha arrives alone. Whispers rise of Mathura and Mathugama,Where…