My Soul,
Three tie-coated gentlemen came to our house proclaiming to be somebody’s witnesses. They asked for five minutes of my time and stayed the eternity they promised for our souls. Your “mati haraki” didn’t understand almost everything: when they said the good here was saved by a great flood, your mother assured them there has never been a flood in our dry-zone. I think they must have been talking about the pre-Balangoda Man times. It was good of them to care for our souls that much, but I’d always choose mine to belong to you than to a god I don’t know—of course, I didn’t tell them that. One even said they were unharmed in their mission through our border villages because of their god’s protection. Right then, I reminded them that we live here unlike their passing through for a few hours. It isn’t anybody’s blessings but the willpower of our own kind that has protected us.
Your Soulful Love
Mati haraki = silly cow
Balangoda Man times = over 35000 years ago
My Future,
It’s been five years since I started working in the kadey. Reminds me how grateful I am to Mudalali Mama for letting me manage it at a time I was bearing the thorny crown “val kella” of the village. On my second day of work, he gave me a 4-years-old diary. “Write all your griefs here and imagine they happened 4 years ago in the past” is what he said. Looking back, I think scribbling in it saved me from being a permanent resident in the Angoda insane asylum—or worse! Surprising, no, how a man who can’t read or write can have such lifesaving wisdom? Today, he gave me extra 1000 rupees and another old diary. But I said writing you postcards helps me glimpse the future and didn’t accept the diary despite his insisting.
Your Woman
Mudalali mama = respectful and endearing way to address “shop owner”
Val kella = slut
samodH Porawagamage writes about the Sri Lankan Civil War, 2004 tsunami, poverty & underdevelopment, and colonial & imperial atrocities. becoming sam, selected by Jaswinder Bolina and published by Burnside Review Press, is his debut collection of poetry.