‘War? In this land? / Who told you?’: There’s a new anthology of Sri Lankan poetry in translation

Unheeded Sights, Aazhiyaal, translated from the Tamil by Lakshmi Holmström

After the rains
the tiled roofs shone
sparklingly clean.
The sky was not yet minded
to become a deeper blue.
The tar roads reminded me
intermittently of rainbows.
From the entire surface of the earth
a fine smoke arose like the smoke
of frankincense, or akil wood,
the earth’s scent stroking the nostrils,
fragrant as a melody.

As the army truck coming towards me
drives away,
a little girl transfers her candy-floss
from one hand to the other
raises her right hand up high
and waves her tiny fingers.

And like the sweet surprise
of an answering air-letter
all the soldiers standing in the truck
wave their hands, exactly like her.

The blood that froze in my veins
for an instant, in amazement,
flows again rapidly, asking aloud,
“War? In this land?
Who told you?”

Corpse no. 182, Packiyanathan Ahilan, translated from the Tamil by Sascha Ebeling

One garment torn to shreds.
I removed that and found another,
drenched in pus.

One breast was missing.
Stuck to the other breast
there was a small child
that I could not remove.
They were fused into one body.

I cleaned them and noted down:
Corpse No. 182.

Crazy Woman, Upekala Bhagyanie Athukorala, translated from the Sinhala by Vivimarie Vanderpoorten

Go on, leave me.
Undo the ropes you tied me with
and go where you may.
Allow this dark and ugly woman to
heal, she who tries to soothe
her bruises by applying balm
with a feather

Don’t.
Don’t come in search of me.
Don’t carelessly flick
the mimosa leaves into closing
they who amidst thorns
fade and awake and fade again.
Allow this coarse
cruel woman you reject
to awaken

Watch.
Watch from afar,
and behold the momentary miracle of a
falling raindrop
above your head
from the clouds I built
with tear-soaked cotton.

Behold as this crazy woman you rejected
conjures up
an entire sky.

A Joy – A Bliss, Ruwan Bandujeewa, translated from the Sinhala by Chamini Kulathunga

Rather than joining in creating
yet another scarecrow
decaying into the homefield
is a joy – a bliss to a stick of straw

My Life in Books, S Bose, translated from the Tamil by Shash Trevett

My life began with a few books:
that there is no rice in the words of a book
became the trouble of our lives.
No one believed in books.
That their lives too emerged from books
was a truth they wouldn’t allow
anyone to believe in.

Books contain no food.
Books contain no clothing
nor gold jewellery.
They are the essence
of this troubled life.

When I declared that henceforth
I would live in my books – t
hat I would sleep in them
that they would consume my heart,
my pyre, the sound of my grief –
Oh God, no one believed me.

Around me, the rooftops are carpeted
with the white feathers of doves.

Excerpted with permission from Out of Sri Lanka: Tamil, Sinhala and English Poetry from Sri Lanka and its Diasporas,’ edited by Vidyan Ravinthiran, Seni Seneviratne, and Shash Trevett, Penguin India.