Through the coconut flower
You reap the sweetest sap you will ever find.
How beautifying is it when
A toddy tapper slants his curved knife
And carves the sap out and lets the drip-through collect
Under a sweet jaggery moon.
A man will collect toddy from a few coconuts trees
And will serve some toddy nectar
Over a little counter, where day-laborers enjoy
A cold sip of fermenting sugars.
A country of toddy tappers by trade
Tapping each-others sweetness
Through a curved meniscus over the chin.
And all we have to show for our quotidian graft
Are some rupees folded in our sarong pockets,
A little house roofed with coconut timber,
And a little island that we call home
Where tanned men drown their embittered existences
Inside a coconut shell, to the therapeutic ephemerality
Of some sweet toddy on tongue.
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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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