their back to the
wall, under siege
by the western culture,
(the English) language,
they turned their wrath
on their age-old
arch enemy

not the view of
an outsider, but that
of a Sinhalese writer,
written at a time when
one knew all about L&T,
but had never ever heard
of the LTTE

and then the
Tamil face took on
that terrible tiger form,
and the very devil
possessed the body
and soul of
both communities

not that others
are any better,
but these were people
incomparably placed
to hold out a beacon
to the rest of the world,
to the whole of humanity

one which retains
and revers
the footprints of
the Tathagata,
the other - also
considered often
as receivers of
a divine blessing

specially blessed,
according to a
German philosopher
and translator of Tamil works,
for they sculptured
that leading light,
the Tirukural

but now these hopes,
those lights, seem distant,
as far as the |Mars,
while these once
blessed communities
remain fettered
to their paradise lost