Sri Lankan face in the world

Charmaine Fernando

Northern lights light up Sri Lankan skies
Aurora! God's amazing grace shines
The chosen one, steps on red carpet
To take the scepter, yet another term
A sporadic moment in history,
To walk heroic leading the fray

With vision unparalleled
He is destined to win
No star no stripe can ride the crest
Where he braves the surf of leadership
Proving beyond measure the Sri Lankan spirit
The heroic Lion-Spirit ingrained in our genes

Look over the shoulder
Listen to Dutugemunu the Great
He resisted impediment
from shores far and near
Look at Parakramabahu the great
He diverted every drop: The tanks testify

With his uncommon, common sense
Abundant Atuwa; filled with every grain
and the aromatic plate of steaming rice
In every Sri Lankan hand
It told a story of plenty
The golden era - we recall

In the 21st Century raw earth
The giants are born again
The spirits have risen from ashes
In the shape of mighty whirl winds
And thunder storms that wipe out
Terror brigades from its roots

Like the Sphinx of yesterday
Lift our beloved motherland
From the clutches of disdain
Wipe clean the disparage
The world spit upon us
Gather the fragments
Strewn to the winds.

A Saviour has emerged from
The backward village of Medamulana
To become the 'Mudun Mula'
Of the masses who were praying
For refuge from death and destruction
Space to breathe and live in peace

In three decades of condemnation
The land was scourged, chastised
Social fabric torn and stained
Then the silver lining glimmered
The people saw the light
At the end of the tunnel

They raised their voices in chorus.
'Here comes the hero' of the land
In less than months twenty four
He had felled the enemy outright
In the next breadth began a sea change
To build the land, the people and their lives.

No country in this whole wide world
Despite their strength in warfare
Technology and a million battalions
Has the stamina, the courage,
He embodies the lion-spirit of Sri Lanka
He is our icon, our identity!

He has a dream. He has a vision.
He has a strategy; a goal to reach.
Invincible as the Gauls of Spain,
Against Caesar's whip of might
He leads from the front come what may
Shedding light; showing the way

Once in an eon a man of this stature
Is born to this earth to make a difference
A man of invincible mettle
A man with a heart of gold
Sri Lanka is blessed with one
The one who preaches what he gets done

He has the wisdom to make decisions
Decisions that work miracles.
He may not walk the seas. But
He makes a sea change in our lives.
He did not create the world But
He dreams of building motherland

From wreckage we were mended
The terror scourge he ended
He lifted gloom and gave us peace
He cleared the debris to build a dream
Its amazing the mettle he is made
Its sensational the speed he moves

We are born of ashes of ancestors
I guess we all were born invincible
The tinge of pride; the tilt of head
We are great in our thoughts, in our actions
Hold in our palms every potential
As children of one Sri Lankan blood.

Its in our culture, our blood
Its the way we are brought up
Its the way we live and breathe
Its the way we dress and behave
Its the way we care and share
Its the mettle we are made of

The Sri Lankan smile will get established
An emblem of our lifestyle
The warm smile from the outward
The lion spirit from inside
Invincible as it were, with a leader like that
We would weather every season now on

The Spring is in our heel,
The Summer is in our smile
Too warm to freeze in Winter
Too strong to ever Fall.
Its the spirit of the one who walks ahead
It's the spirit of Sri Lanka

Here lies the hero on the threshold
Of an enchanting new episode
He will write a fascinating story
Building a dream like no other in glory
We have finally found our identity
The Sri Lankan face in the world