EarthLines – Poem

At the end of midnight
large, dark waves, swooped
upwards into the sky and harvested
the stars into the boats of
the sleeping fishermen.
The moon sucked in the blood of the fish
falling in slow motion back to the sea.

The earthlings gaped at the sky;
Them, children, again, and had to learn anew
to laugh with the lark flying higher and higher into the sky
to run with the stream as it glittered and simmered,
to the rhythm of the sun and the shadow of the moon,
on its way to the ocean.

Dawn came, uncertainly, breaking through
a leaden sky, suffusing the world in orange light.

And the earthlings, awake all night
from the shock of the arrival of star-filled boats,
left their homes.
They held a star to their hearts,
listening to directions from
the sky and the earth and the sea,
walking ceaselessly in the heat of the sun,
along the blood trails of the moon,
Feeding on shards of
seaweed covered in stardust.

Through their leaving, they lived.
The earth laughed, when finally, it heard,
the rhythm of its own heart
in the footfall of the wanderers.

Ramya Chamalie Jirasinghe

A curated set of images from the exhibit