No Man’s Land
Sri Lanka, May 19th: Victory Day/Remembrance Day/National War Hero’s Day
What words are there
to say Celebrate and Mourn
at the same time?
The rules don’t allow
the retroflex and bilabial consonants of one
to mingle with the long
hollow vowel and nasal consonant
of the other
Joy is a grey area in war
Grief – not so
Remembrance of the war dead
is fragmented;
bombed into binaries of the
victor and the vanquished.
It is impossible to mourn
amid magnificence
and mechanized columns
there can be no pity in a parade
no sobs between
singing of an anthem.
But secretly in the interstices
of hearts, lost sons are remembered
invisible lamps are lit in dark corners
of grieving souls
In no man’s land
tears wash away smiles
Sadness holds hands
with happiness,
hoping for an end
to misery’s march-past.
Vivimarie VanderPoorten teaches English at the Open University of Sri Lanka. Her first book of poems nothing prepares you won the 2007 Gratiaen Prize in Sri Lanka; She has since published two other collections of poetry, Stitch your Eyelids Shut and Borrowed Dust, both of which won national awards. Her work has also been published in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the UK and in translation in Nepal, Sweden and Mexico. She is also a translator from Sinhala to English and her translated poems have been published by the Commonwealth Writers Foundation. Some of her poems and translations were recently published in an Anthology of Sri Lankan poets by Bloodaxe Books. She recently translated three children’s books from Sinhala to English in association with a Room to Read mentorship program.