To our dearly-beloved son, now dead
In a makeshift vihara in the heart of London
Bikku then disclosed his parents long gone
Might one dare utter after all these years
Was it yesterday he would shed dry tears
Somewhere in the saffron folds of his faith
A lonely boy still lurked wanting his mother
Or brother sister and hope-dislocating father
Of how they could abandon even his wraith
Just a single line in the inner board of a book
Over dried blue ink his fingers caressed words
A life he might've had in who knows what worlds
He just wanted to say: ‘See, who so forsook! '
In an unwatched vihara in the heart of London
A forsaken boy dared break out of monkdom
Might one dare utter after all these years
Was it yesterday he would shed dry tears
Too late he had come to own up this truth:
‘If there's a Supreme Being leave Him well be
He knows best what He's doing forsooth
Mind your own business leave Him well be! '
Should one gauge the measure of a man's humanity
From his ability to outgrow imposed attachments:
Such as confines of his community race or country
But most of all withstand the viral encroachments
Of his conditioned beliefs upon his own personality.
Dedicated to Mahathero Gunasena
(© T. Wignesan - Paris - September 8,1983 - Rev.2012, from the sequence/collection: 'Words for a Lost Sub-Continent',1999.)
poem by T. Wignesan
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