Kwesi Brew. The Sea Eats Our Lands.

100 Poets, 100 Poems

Here stood our ancestral home:
The crumbling wall marks the spot.
Here a sheep was led to slaugther
To appease the gods and atone
For faults which our destiny
Has blossomed into crimes.
There my cursed father once stood
And shouted at us, his children.
To come back from our play

To our evening meal and sleep.
The clouds are thickening in the red sky
And night had charmed
A black power into the pounding waves.

Here once lay Keta.
Now her golden girls
Erode into the arms
Of strange towns.
Here stood our ancestral home:
The crumbling wall marks the spot.
Here a sheep was led to slaugther
To appease the gods and atone

For faults which our destiny
Has blossomed into crimes.
There my cursed father once stood
And shouted at us, his children.
To come back from our play

To our evening meal and sleep.
The clouds are thickening in the red sky
And night had charmed
A black power into the pounding waves.

Here once lay Keta.
Now her golden girls
Erode into the arms
Of strange towns.

ENJOY MORE
A small island encircled by formidable oceans, Sri Lanka is a mystery to many: remote, hard to place; a well-kept secret. The Ceylon Press seeks to make its complicated story more accessible. The Press publishes a range of podcasts including The History Of Sri Lanka; the off-grid Jungle Diaries podcast; Island Stories, the podcast that explores what makes Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan; Archaeologies, the blank verse diaries of an occasional hermit; as well as Poetry from The Jungles’ two podcasts, 101 Poets; and 100 Poet, 100 Poems. All these, along with eBooks, dictionaries, guides and companions can be found at www.theceylonpress.com, based at The Flame Tree Estate & Hotel in the jungle west of Kandy .