The Final Escape
We can only begin to live when we conceive life as Tragedy – W. B. Yeats
“Having floated for at least two days in the choppy Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe, a rickety trawler overstuffed with African migrants fleeing war and poverty was nearing a Sicilian island, not even a quarter-mile away. But it was still dark and no one had yet spotted them. So to signal their position, someone set a match to a blanket.
But rather than sending a signal, the fire brought tragedy when flames from the burning blanket ignited gasoline…”
From the news report ‘Migrants Die as Burning Boat Capsizes Off Italy’ by Jim Yardley and Elisabetta Povoledo in ‘The New York Times’ on Oct 03, 2013.
Uprooted by the war’s callous hands
In despair blacker than a moonless night
Out of sheer fear for their lives
The refugees embarked on
The voyage of hope.
With little in possession
Other than what they wore
They’d travel light but for their heavy hearts
Heavy with sorrow for what’s left behind
Heavy with hope for what’s to come
In equal measure.
The rickety trawler
Balked at the helm’s unrelenting command
Perhaps sensing some foreboding in the air.
Still, they’d so nearly crossed the choppy Mediterranean waters
That Lampedusa, a holiday makers’ paradise with its azure waters
and sandy beaches would soon be in sight.
In their blissful ignorance
In that hair-thin gap between life and death
They must have momentarily dreamt
About this land of plenty
Where the word ‘future‘
Would take on a meaning for them.
The fire so took them by surprise, so invaded their dreams
That they must have wondered in that tragic instant
(or perhaps even muttered to themselves)
If it was just a bad dream or a real blaze
Before some of them were burnt to ashes;
Some others must have been drowned
Even before the truth could begin to sink in.
The gap between life and death
Thinned to a blink, shrank to a hair.
A blaze afloat on water: it was almost surreal
How these otherwise opposing elements could work together
So well towards such a pernicious end.
So strange sometimes are the caprices of Fate
And the conundrums of Nature,
The creator and the destroyer!
So strange and tragic how life with
Such boundless possibilities
Could be so snuffed out!
The burning wreck of the trawler was quite articulate
Better signaling the arrival near the land of (lost) hope
Than a burning blanket could ever do
Of the hapless migrants
Who escaped from the war’s long, callous arms
Into death’s cold embrace.
A tempest of bitter sighs
Stirred the Mediterranean Seas.
Words: Jayashantha Jayawardhana
Mayhem on Earth
Each living being is a tiny drop,
In the vast ocean of the cosmos,
Inter -related and inter-dependent,
Being part of the universal consciousness,
In the waters of ups and downs,
Navigate the life-boat,
Seeking happiness and peace,
Hoping for a better tomorrow,
Life stopped for a moment,
Traumatised by the devastating blow on the humanity,
The beginning of a violent era,
Unleashing nothing but evil.
It’s heart wrenching to witness the destruction,
On an unprecedented large scale,
Baseless, conventional egocentric divisions,
Triggered by the unhealthy conditioning and false beliefs,
Disrespect for the harmonious living built on loving _ kindness and tolerance,
Preached by all religious leaders,
Ignorance of the essence of all spiritual teachings,
Lead to conflicts escalating to blood _Baths,
Inflicting heinous cruelty and sufferings on fellow beings,
On an unimaginable scale,
In a split second the horrendous scene created,
Paralysed the senses of the bewildered
The flames of anger sprang up in the air,
The air blackened by the smoke,
Foretold the gloomy story awaiting,
The high rise buildings crumbled down to dust,
The apartments and buildings sheltered millions,
Burnt down to ashes in a matter of seconds,
The agonising screams of the wounded,
Reverberated through the melancholy air,
The scattered corpses covered by blood,
Had no time for farewells,
To dear and loved ones awaiting their return,
Negative energies of fear, hatred and revenge,
Polluted the planet mercilessly.
The pathetic outcome of the insatiable thirst for power,
Material wealth predominating over the spiritual wealth,
Are they the reasons for the cold _ blooded massacres,
Hard to be rectified in the annals of history.
Words: Malini Hettiarachchi
Looking for you in the boulevards
In thronged and huddled,
and brimming boulevards and thoroughfares,
My naked eyes would still prowl and quest for your sight.
Every retention, every recall, and every anamnesis of our era,
collectively subsists in every eupnea, that I take.
Centuries prior your smooch and butterfly, I got myself lost in you.
Your turning loose of emotion is not your metaphor;
You are the simile for the abdication from emotion.
At your doorstep, a zillion number of prodigies and portents occur.
I yearn for myself to be upon a glittering star,
that someday, you will be my belonging.
Something often and always remains in you
and that is waiting for a discovery.
Rain clouds are your best buddies.
Gloomy sky is your witness.
You hunt and forage for your survival.
Beside the infinite ocean of tarry and tenants,
Where obscurity and dimness occupy themselves.
For your flicker and flash, the ocean would chance
the sanctioning of dreams,
To the fretful and fitful soul,
that dwells within your heart.
So goes the Bard’s quote “Thus I die, thus, thus, thus.
Now I am dead, Now I am fled, my soul is in the sky.
Tongue, lose thy light. Moon takes thy flight.
Now, die, die, die, die”.
Lamentations you endure,
are a cloudless, glassy, and crystalline ocean,
that embraces your inner soul.
The sense of insecurity ripping through the sense of rejection
Is the hardest edge of the strain and exertion of losing you.
The Bard in Hamlet declared, “Brevity is the soul of wit.
We know what we are but know not what we may be”.
A pin drop silence after rain;
The sky knows the art of making itself silence,
following a torrential rain.
In order to give credence to your heart
full of pang, agony, and despair;
in order to offer it repeatedly,
to distinguish the hidden beauty,
surrounded by every bit of hurt you tolerated….
This is plainly and patently,
the incongruity and mordancy,
whimsy and farce,
fury, and frenzy;
the palpable and unfeigned love.
Words: Nirosha Rajapakse Madugalle
