{"id":140954,"date":"2024-03-14T17:19:27","date_gmt":"2024-03-15T00:19:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=140954"},"modified":"2024-03-14T17:19:27","modified_gmt":"2024-03-15T00:19:27","slug":"heading-back-for-harrison-perera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2024\/03\/14\/heading-back-for-harrison-perera\/","title":{"rendered":"“Heading\u00a0Back (for Harrison Perera)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Asoka Weerasinghe<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Dreaming of the joy of wanting<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

to make an offering of sharing moments<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

of poems, music and the theatre<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

there haven’t been many<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

who have walked beside me<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

with the courage of a lion roaring<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

at dinner circuits through polemical acts<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

of ethnic hate and tensed moments.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have admired your conviction<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

of not backing away from hastily<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

constructed arguments parachuted<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

with twisted horns and creepers.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have scanned the road together<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(with Asoka Yapa)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

praying for the blessings before we<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

picked our bags to walk<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

into the fires of songs and wisdom.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I envy your karmic delight<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

of wishing for bunches of coconuts,<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

the smell of  diesel fumes coughing out<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

from twentieth century buses, the bazaar<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

with fruits and fishes and stalls hooked<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

with raw meat boiling with buzzing flies<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

in the sun’s heat, the streets lined with<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

cathedral trees of scented araliya blossom,<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

and long haired tropical women<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

pasting their wet sarongs over tanned bosoms<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

and buttocks under streaming waterfalls.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In your journey outward,<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

scanning the road alone<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I shall wish you pots brim-full with curd<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

and honey, lasting music of tom-toms<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

and string-bead festoons of raindrops<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

of falling monsoon rain.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(from Tewa selected poems by Asoka Weerasinghe<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

page 87)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brother Harrison, I  touch your feet in reverence being a<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

a trusting friend who covered my back together with<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

brother Asoka Yapa, when I stood tall for yours and My<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Mother Lanka from my critics in Ottawa.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rest in Peace Harrison wherever you chose to be.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I will  Love you for always and will never ever forget You.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your brother Comrade-in-arms. Asoka Weerasinghe)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-140954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asoka-weerasinghe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140954\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}