POETRY: CESSATION & BROOMSTICK HOUSES BY KAMALIKA JAYATHILAKA

Cessation

By

kamalika Jaythilaka

The clay oil-lamps and their dull amber flames

Danced like her gushing fierce thoughts of shame

The bleeding black oil stained the soft gritty sands

With beads of sour sorrow that soaked her hands

The wrinkled old palms hunched together in prayer

With her sad glassy eyes on the blue dusky air  

Uttering of suffering of relentless despair 

Of incessant past samsaric burdens to bear

A lone frog croaked to the drone of the crickets

The street dogs howled to the full mooned heavens

The forgotten young waif got a rice-grain pittance

As the saffron robed monk sang the way to cessation      

Her slow strides crunched the dry leaves like music

As the blade at her head tore her hair like magic

Ending lifetimes of suffering crushing and karmic  

She drifted to a light afar from all tragic 

Broomstick Houses

By

Kamalika Jaythilaka

Our petite play houses of broomstick structures

Have faded like smoke into a faraway distance

Our carefree laughter our swift childish footsteps

Have all been buried with cold cement corridors

Our dolls our tea cups and little silver trinkets

Have turned into memories in each other’s subconscious

Our crisp cotton dresses with their old fashioned ribbons

Have all been torn and pulled into fragments

Our screams and our dreams blended in with the breeze

When we climbed tall trees and ran through the fields 

Our soft whispered secrets and raw innocent longings

Fell into the flowers and softened their petals

The childhood we shared my friend you and I

Full of butterflies and rainbows and sisterly fondness

Keeps me smiling and longing for a carefree existence

Where you were my sister and I you in a shadowy distance

© Kamalika Jayathilaka