Straggler of the Lost Generation

After decades of long delay
I returned to my native vale
Seeking refuge from life's travails
To end my days in tranquil contentment
 

The green landscape is the same but the facade of
life has changed
Everywhere I was greeted with unknown faces
Where are my loved ones and bosom pals
All have departed leaving fond memories

With awe inspiring Pa and love-doting ma departed
The family dispersed by the lure of Dollars,
Pounds and Dinars
The ancestral home is in rack and ruin
Where wild Bo plants sprout in the ledges
Mocking me with stark impermanence

I yearn for the palpitating warmth of my parents
I pine for the cosy affection of my uncles and aunts
I long for bonhomie banter of the village folks
I strain my eyes and glean the scene to seek
A familiar face to attach my lost roots
Only to end in soulless isolation

I wish I could regress the marching time scale
To retreat to revived living of the olden times
And repose in the cradle of alluring by gone days
Softly swaying in the warmth of lingering of rapture
Oh! It is a child pursuing an elusive rainbow

In despair of suffocating loneliness
I climbed the hill behind the house
There my eyes devoured the grandeur of the green valley
With cascading streams of Hunas Peak glittering in
the mellow sunshine
Finally I babe farewell to my childhood memories

At last I returned to my exile in urban domicile
Where the concrete jungle and the noxious waste dumps prolife rate
With man as predator beast prowling to pounce on fellow beings
No more cuckoos sing nor the bees drone in the treeless terrain
Everyone jostle and hurries with worries of the rat race

Vision box and sound box bait you with cash pots
To see and hear their dished out trash stuffs
The mind enslaved debased young and old
Bewitched by earsplitting beat and rhythms
Swing to the desecrated holy Sangbo song

Oh lord!
I cannot wallow in the enchantment of the lost times
Nor can I swallow junk food under neon signs
Morning obituaries deject me with mournful
Departure of remaining friends and colleagues
Stranded between phantom past and inclement present
I am a straggler of the lost generation
Hobbling into finale of inevitable oblivion

- G.H.A. Suraweera