After 26 years of seeing blood
Spewing out from arteries
They now protest for a few thousand
Rupees folding in their palms
To spit out the scarlet paint of Areca nuts
Made basic with lime
And a sedentary armchair next to a wheel
Chair has a little artefact on which
Betel leaves are kept. Leaves which will never
See a hero’s feet that lay amputated
In the harshest of realities
The story of the betel leaf
Resonates just like the story of the soldier
A leaf of respect and honor chewed
By a soldier who travels in a wheel chair
To protest for a miserly pension that can
Buy some betel leaves and areca nuts
They live through the sable nightmares
And the forgone grunt of a mine
To inhabit a world where they can smile
With lesions in their mouth
Inside a lonely ward in a little town
Called Maharagama
The betel leaf was supposed to embellish
Two feet and held inside open palms
In honored traditions
And not be spewed out as blood.
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Published by meandererworld (Dilantha Gunawardana)
Dr Dilantha Gunawardana graduated from the University of Melbourne, as a molecular biologist, and moonlights as a poet. He currently serves as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Botany, University of Sri Jayewardenepura. Dilantha lives in a chimeric universe of science and poetry. Dilantha’s poems have been accepted for publication /published in HeartWood Literary Magazine, Canary Literary Magazine, Boston Accent, Forage, Kitaab, Eastlit, American Journal of Poetry, Zingara Poetry Review, The Wagon and Ravens Perch, among others. Dilantha too has two anthologies of poetry, 'Kite Dreams' (2016) and 'Driftwood' (2017), both brought to the readership by Sarasavi Publishers, and is working on his third poetry collection (The Many Constellations of Home). Dilantha’s pet areas of teaching and research, include, Nitrogen Fixation, RNA biology, Phytoremediation, Agricultural Biology, and Bioethics & Biosafety. Dilantha blogs at – https://meandererworld.wordpress.com/ -, where he has nearly 2000 poems.
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