Chamodi Waidyathilaka

“Two Pursuits
A voice said: ‘Follow, follow:’ and I rose
And followed far into the dreamy night, Turning my back upon the pleasant light.
It led me where the bluest water ows,
And would not let me drink; where the corn grows
I dared not pause, but went uncheered by sight Or touch; until at length in evil plight
It left me, wearied out with many woes. Some time I sat as one bereft of sense:
But soon another voice from very far Called: ‘Follow, follow:’ and I rose again.°
Now on my night has dawned a blesséd star;
Kind, steady hands my sinking steps sustain, And will not leave me till I shall go hence.”
― Christina Rossetti, The Complete Poems

“The Isle of Moila is the first stop past Tobermory. It is not a large island, perhaps nine miles by five, with formidable cliffs to the north-west that face the weather like the prow of a ship. From the steep sheep-bitten turf at the head of these cliffs the land slopes gently down towards a glen where the island’s only sizeable river runs seawards out of a loch cupped in a shallow basin among low hills. Presumably the loch – lochan, rather, for it is not large – is fed by springs eternally replenished by the rain, for nothing flows into it except small burns seeping through rush and bog myrtle, which spread after storms into sodden quagmires of moss. But the outflow is perennially full, white water pouring down to where the moor cleaves open and lets it fall to the sea.”
― Mary Stewart

“nothing lay so clear
before those who stood
on these banks than the great
canopy of sky that spread
above them and poured forth
its endless light
and everything it seemed
stood eternal here
all that was laid bare
or the golden light
of grain heading out
in summer calls them all
and gazing into it
they see summers
spread everywhere before
them flowing through
the air generations of the sun
standing in sheaves
while over all of them
the silent river and
the grass against their feet
a star unmoving
stands beyond anyone’s grasp
this is the light that draws them all into
the dream of what will be
when they no longer walk here
possibility
rises in the light
as if every dawn
turned departure toward
endless arrivals
where only the rising sun
holds time in its light
asleep upon our hands
but of the past of all
who stand here it is
somewhere other than now
intermittent in
the sky as if it were
the moon floating away
and all that is recalled
growing dimmer through
the evenings of the mind”
― E.D. Blodgett, Poems for a Small Park

“The Bourne
Underneath the growing grass,
Underneath the living owers, Deeper than the sound of showers: There we shall not count the hours
By the shadows as they pass. Youth and health will be but vain,
Beauty reckoned of no worth:
There a very little girth
Can hold round what once the earth
Seemed too narrow to contain.”
― Christina Rossetti, Christina Rossetti in Poetry and Prose