-- sumathy

to the memory of the three-wheeler driver purportedly shot dead by the ltte for being familiar with the police

we will not mourn you

auto-man, nameless,

in my address book,

for you have turned

a spy and i a yuppie

activist; you spun yarns

in war and peace

and i took a vow of silence.

for they said, carelessly,

in choice words of wisdom;

its of no con

sequence,

only a street man.

who drank deep

of the poisons of this city

who dared to cross

borders and language marches,

carried messages of peace

across enemy lines

in war time.

but now that we have

the chatter of peace

all around us,

we are on

an epic journey

to mother land, to sattahip.

we will not mourn you;

for peace unfurls in a flurry of words, talks,

and we await, in chaste longing,

a second coming of

holy men and hooligan

dealers.

but they were not certain, charioteer,

the city planners and civil society,

they were not certain

of your humanity; they took

a snap decision,

in plush hotels made in heaven,

to clean up the streets,

of gods and their side kicks,

of traitors and three wheelers,

they wanted to clean up the city, safe,

for fascists and foreign

investers.

i will not mourn you, three legged guide,

for i too have caught the germ;

i have sealed my body

against your truth; i pack

my thoughts tight

in six yards of lack;

wave flags at

peace vigils, supplicate

in a long unbidden prayer,

haunted by winding memories of

your courage, love, caring, intimacy, struggle.

cruelly, you joked

with death

and its militant fans,

splattered the white

of the sidewalks

with shades of

red; the blood

ran down the palace walls,

drowned peace and all

its polite talk

in its naked colour

in a tumult of the multitude, turning

the grey of my dream

incarnadine.

· sattahip: the first round of peace talks between the ltte and the sri lankan government was held in sattahip in thailand. “thai” is the formal term for mother in tamil.

· since the mou was signed between the government and the ltte a

number of people including three wheeler drivers have been killed by

the ltte for going against their strictures.

sumathy teaches at the Dept. of English Univ. of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka - decidedly feminist and impulsively Marxist; Is a feminist theatre activist.