Cheran - Village in the frontier

VILLAGE IN THE FRONTIER

Dear urban guerilla!

My salutations.

Before you get ready
for the next ambush
you may have a hundred jobs like ,
cleaning the rifle
checking the ammunition
punishing decoits and robbers.
Yet
spare me a few minutes
and listen to me.

i happened to roam about
in the frontier of our land.
A long boundary in the Eastern Province
prone to the attack of aliens, we all know!

We walked twenty miles
into the woods,
bathed in -the rapids that crossed our paths
and passed lotuses that bloomed on the ground,
with the sun on our backs.

There is a place called Tiger leap
(i bet you like this name!)
A river runs to its right
Letting it flow on the otherside
we walked this side.

The village in the frontier.
The green fields
of our land
and theirs spread on either side
of Maduru oya.

On days
when the river dries up
they come over here
to hunt rabbits
and their shouts,
to scare wild buffaloes are heard.

Woods on one side;
elephants abound in them
hills on the other;

a water-hole is in between.
A cluster of huts
mass-colonized treacherously by the government
is visible from there.

Here too live ‘peasants,
who you believed
existed only in Cuba!
soil and the man tied to it
They do not know of magazines
They do not know of schools.
Nor have they heard of TV, Video, electricity...
Listening to news given by
the Sri Lankan Government
they know of you only as ‘terrorists’!

How did this happen?

Nobody raises guns
to save the people from khaki-clad demons.
Whose duty is it
to guard the people in the frontier?

How long are
ambushes and guerilla attacks
inside the lines of our own- court
going to last-

Unable to answer my questions if you say
‘Damn you, stupid poet!
is this the time for questions?’
and run along for an ambush
I will have to repeat them
Whenyou prepare
for your next operation!

Isolated from the people
what meaning do guns have,
even if they be A.K.47?

••••••••

-Cheran