Asoka Weerasinghe

Dreaming of the joy of wanting

to make an offering of sharing moments

of poems, music and the theatre

there haven’t been many

who have walked beside me

with the courage of a lion roaring

at dinner circuits through polemical acts

of ethnic hate and tensed moments.

I have admired your conviction

of not backing away from hastily

constructed arguments parachuted

with twisted horns and creepers.

We have scanned the road together

(with Asoka Yapa)

praying for the blessings before we

picked our bags to walk

into the fires of songs and wisdom.

I envy your karmic delight

of wishing for bunches of coconuts,

the smell of  diesel fumes coughing out

from twentieth century buses, the bazaar

with fruits and fishes and stalls hooked

with raw meat boiling with buzzing flies

in the sun’s heat, the streets lined with

cathedral trees of scented araliya blossom,

and long haired tropical women

pasting their wet sarongs over tanned bosoms

and buttocks under streaming waterfalls.

In your journey outward,

scanning the road alone

I shall wish you pots brim-full with curd

and honey, lasting music of tom-toms

and string-bead festoons of raindrops

of falling monsoon rain.

(from Tewa selected poems by Asoka Weerasinghe

page 87)

Brother Harrison, I  touch your feet in reverence being a

a trusting friend who covered my back together with

brother Asoka Yapa, when I stood tall for yours and My

 Mother Lanka from my critics in Ottawa.

Rest in Peace Harrison wherever you chose to be.

I will  Love you for always and will never ever forget You.

Your brother Comrade-in-arms. Asoka Weerasinghe)