The Window of the Present
- Post 30 July 2013
- By Bashana Abeywardane
Nightmares, long dead,
peer through the shattered panes of the
window of the present.
The dead of the south, killed on the streets,
with bullet riddled skulls,
walk once again, through an endless night,
And those of the north drowned in deluges of fire
when rains of steel drench their unforgiving earth,
gaze through the shards of glass empty eyed;
as slaughtering armies, prowl under starless skies,
upholding sovereignty
with blood-soaken hands.
Our past is the last breath of those,
countless generations entombed
without seeing the day of freedom?
But who is to say
that even this July a breath of summers hope, would not
steal through the shattered panes of the window of the present.
Bashana Abeywardane | July 1996
Translated by Prathap de Silva