Ode to a Blown Candle In Remembrance of Nadeepa Dharmasiri

“I sing to him that rests below” – Alfred Lord Tennyson
‘Tis the day, Oh! The Eighth of August,   
Reminds us strong; life is the vaguest!  
Azure is the welkin, now aged— at I stared;  
To the harmony of the chorus, at dawn: I listened.  
It sang of the days, weeks, years and seasons—  
The four years as victims of life’s vile treasons!  
Songs euphonic; sung in your memory,  
Charity is done; to relive your story—  
All eyes alight with a mist of tears;  
That will stream for many-o‟-sunless years!  
You who could have been “the genuine priest”;  
A bane for the devil, and for cherubs to feast!  
Yet you for joys, saints strove to own,  
Drew the last breath, of righteous tone,  
Lived short and left,  
At God’s behest,  
Abandoned us all with hearts broken,  
Words, emotions; left unspoken.  
Ravindu Fonseka