The Stork and the Fish
The crafty hunter in grey-white plumage
Surreptitious like a burglar,
Placid like a sculpture,
Stands upon the narrow grassy bank by the brook,
Poising itself painfully on a single leg,
Alert like a sharpshooter,
Biding its time as seconds tick by,
Watching the seemingly still shallows,
For the merest ripple, the faintest motion
Of some fish surfacing for a
fraction of a second.
The moment an ill-fated fish,
unsuspecting,
Breaking the surface,
It takes it in one swift relentless snatch,
Clamping it ruthlessly, inextricably,
With its unforgiving spear-like yellow bill,
And swallows it in a single gulp or two.
For the hapless fish, the strike and the ensuing death
Is too swift to tell the pain, regret and surprise apart.
Its hunger now satiated,
The stork shifts its artful, ballerina poise and flies away.
It’ll repeat the selfsame routine tomorrow too
Here or someplace else
Safe and even complacent
in the knowledge
That, come what may,
the tables can never be turned on it.
With her strange and even devious logic,
Nature endows the predator with power and cunning
And the prey with naivety.
Then, when it comes to numbers
She reverses her gifts.
So that both exist and keep a theoretical balance in her garden
Just as the rich and
the poor do in our world.
Perhaps, it’s worth noting that
A crab had once avenged such a stork
In a next-to-impossible plot twist,
As witnessed by the Lord Buddha in
One of his countless past lives.
Maybe, it’s all just fiction.
But even in fiction,
Justice feels so right,
So good.
Words: Jayashantha Jayawardhana
Rain brings rays of hope
You fall from the eerie green blush and flush in the sky.
Youdo not just hush and lull; the searing and flaming planet earth but also epitomise and embody the life.
You fling and flip the fancy of the sonneteers from days of yore.
To the blare of trumpets and to the reverberation of the raindrops, falling unto your glass windows at the crack of dawn, you welcome a brand new day.
As the rotten luck; devil’s own luck slant and sink into you, raindrops stand your blessing in disguise.
A vow of rain often appears with a pledge of sun.
You wheel and whirl and dance in the rain lifting your face to the weeping gloomy skies.
You choose to share a smile with the rain and invite your heart to enjoy with the ecstasy of its exultation and rapture.
Your gimmicks and plots are not left in ruins by the raindrops. They forge swift and abrupt feats.
Nature shrieks and screams for you, as it rains on a chilly afternoon.
Rain isn’t a blue devil and blue funk.The earth cackled and chuckled so hard.
Obscurity and murk will not prevail until eternity. The rain will cease, the sky will paint its own masterpiece and you will rejuvenate.
Let rain scour and lave your shambles and plight away, bringing you into a greener pasture.
The sun will rise in the Eastern sky, it will dry the rain, it will dry the teardrops run through your face.
Rain is your grace; agility and dexterity. It showers your spirit; it waters your vivacity and vitality.
Nature is flooded with an ocean of secrets; the rain often struggles to tell you something.
Catching forty winks to a cold rain is a blessing.
Find an overwhelming soul with an abundance of loving kindness to walk with you through the rain and that would be the person destined for you.
Words: Nirosha Rajapakse
