From Pasan — a threnody for Lanka


                 ...that terrible time, years
Compelling a revised image of ourselves, years
When all discourse, all thought
Yielded to an orchestration of silences counterpointed
By the sounds of despair -
The moans, the shots, the lamentations,
The variations
Of ay-ay-yo-o...!
                       ...Pitiless.
A word for our time, pitiless
The perpetrations, drained, wrung dry the watchers
Waiting in numb, ever-fulfilled
Expectation...

                ...lacrymosa
Dies illa

                                        (ay-ay-yo-o, lacrymosa and dies illa should be chanted - the
                                         two latter as in Mozart's Requiem)

Ashley Halpé