Revisiting in memory

Time takes me back

To my life in the Vanni,

That strange and remote land

In the age of ox carts

And oil-wick lamps

A guru in a primitive school

With a dark room to live in,

A rope-strung bed

To lay my head

 

Woodfires in the outhouse

Stinging my eyes,

A twig broom for sweeping,

Sloshing home water

In a pot at my hip

Too young to endure

Hardships of rural life

Life in the backwoods

Was to live a life

 

At slow pace

In step with folkways

Revisiting in memory

In hindsight I see

Adversity taught me humility

farmers in vanni, sri lanka

Farmers in Vanni district, Sri Lanka

Kamala Gunasekara

Nugegoda

Sri Lanka







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