When a leaf falls, it leaves behind a legacy
A node, a nook bared of a garment
And I wonder what my legacy would be.
Would I change the shape of a Pizza?
Or just one degree of the tower of Pisa?
In that gulf, I’m engulfed by my own frailty.
Of how the moon can get swallowed by the night.
And that leaf I will be – dead one day – will crown a little patch
Of soil, giving a habitat to thousands of tiny bacteria.
And that thought by itself suffices.
Saprophytes burning little carbon bonds
Harvesting little energies to feed me,
To billions who will grow a heartbeat
And will hear my echo, long after me.
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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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