Solipsistic Meanderings » A bit of poetry …

April 21, 2003

A bit of poetry …

I wrote a cryptic, meandering, incomprehensible entry today in the morning from home but could not post it due to the fact that my host server was down. I feel like making a post today but can’t think of all the stuff I wrote earlier (plus, I can republish that from home tomorrow anyway :p) and so I decided to put up this poem that I wrote today for the newspaper page that I edit. It seemed to sort of come together pretty fast and while I don’t think of it as “real” poetry, it did flow well and so I’m putting it up … or something …

The Song of Lanka

First came the Aryans to this island fair,
With the heir of the clan from the lion’s lair,
They drove off her native sons,
To the jungle where the wild river runs!

Then came those from the Indian South,
Who some claim had entered the lion’s mouth,
In search of lands to plunder
Or just places to live, they here did blunder.

In to this mix was thrown the Arab traders,
Who some now claim were invaders,
They came to trade
But liked the climes and stayed.

All three races lived, allied and fought
Till the day they sighted the first boat
Of a new race to enter the books of Lankan history,
The Portugese were this new race of mystery.

The Portugese took over the sea ports
But in turn were driven off by the Dutch cohorts,
Who themselves wanted a beachhead
On this island paradise of the sands red!

As seconds turn to minutes and minutes into hours,
So do invaders get thrown out by even higher powers.
The British followed the Dutch to the Indian sea,
And took over this land in its entirety.

After a century and more of British rule,
We gained our independence with a roar, not a mewl
But since then instead of living in harmony
We’ve bickered and fought, called each other enemy.

After all the bloodshed, all the pain
All that we went through to, our independence gain,
Why can’t we learn the lessons of history
And learn that amity is the way forward for you and me?