To Pathi, nothing ordinary

these are cruel days,   
bush fires burning, burning. 
but i saw your body thrust into,   
not the red embers of a funeral pyre,   
not a slow licking of fire,   
but a cast iron casket, larger than life,   
more hideous than death that swallowed you whole   
into its jaws, a modern gas chamber.
 
a dream in the night   
baffles my days,   
bearing no word, only the dark shade   
of silence. 
time not healing,   
i want to know   
where you have gone,   
to which land and clime,   
which shore i cannot scan,   
the wind dead and my loss   
too heavy lie. 

in this lonely murderous home of our earth   
that we have come to care,   
i carry tales of dull lives   
in our daily converse,   
of daggers and democracies.
the empty chatter of mere mortals   
of rhymes, routine,   
riots, chanting crowds, imagined elsewhere,   
charts betrayal in small detail   
and foretelling prophesy. 

time not healing,   
i have many more miles to go,   
and many more laughs, and many more loves   
 many more songs and many more words. 
worlds more to hold in your hand,   
time sustaining   
my long fortitudinous   
shelter-torn sorrow.   

sumathy   
on the second death anniversary of dharmasena pathiraja, january 28, 2020