C02 Colombo, Western Province SRI LANKA 1815

It’s final now the parting

It’s over, this obsessive wandering

In a landscape rank with foliage

…

We have no country now no

Land, nowhere to be what

Once we were, you made us turn

Away with hate and fear

Placed between us walls

Edged with jagged glass splintered

And sharp, erected barriers.

Now we are strangers

Either we stay awake dark nights sleepless

Throbbing with fugitive dreams

Locked within a cell

Wait for the release of death

Or embark upon a ship

That takes us rootless

Without maps

To fare forth

On a voyage without end

— Jean Arasanayagam, excerpt “Now We Are Strangers,” 1984

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