100 Words
View(s):| Much beautiful writing has come into the 100 word page in ‘Purple’. Evoking mood and beauty, sometimes humour, it shows how strongly colour can inspire memory and feeling. The theme of October is ‘FICTION’. Please send in your contributions on our before October 1, 2016. Madhubhashini Disanayaka-Ratnayake 100 Words c/o The Sunday Times, 8, Hunupitiya Cross Road Colombo 2NB – Work sent to this page may be edited. |
Purple
A little boy tells his father
‘Look Pa, the sky is purple.’
The father says, ‘No son, it’s blue.’
The little boy says
‘Look at my kite
The sky IS purple’ -
Just as a drgaon fly
Flitting on a water lilly
Lives in a purple haze
Ursula P. Wijesuriya
Purple Coot
Gorgeous, in sleek blue-purple plumage
He was beaking his feathers leisurely
At the water’s edge
I was knee-deep in water
Wet cloth coiling round my legs
Tilting my earthen pot
Listening to the water
Gurgle into its emptiness
I walked back to the water’s edge
Pot on hip, on squishy feet
Making holes in mud and murk
And delightedly picked
A blue-purple wing feather
He had dropped
He was running long toed
On dew-pooled lotus leaves with ease
Running deep into the sweetness
Of ivory lotus blooms
And pale-mauve water lillies
A shifting patch of purple-blue.
Kamal Gunesekera
Purple Beams
Towards dawn
The unbearable heat
In the packed hostel room
Brings him out.
Sitting in the rattan chair
He eyes the marvel –
The purple moon in the golden sky
Filters her rays through the branches
And bathes the world
His favourite colour
So soothing to the eye.
His friends mock -
A woman’s colour.
He feels no objection
She cools the universe
With purple beams and chastity
Driving away the heat
Like a kind woman.
Kumari Weerasooriya
A Purple Bride
Mum was horrified
Her face was almost purple with rage
How can you wear this colour
For your going-away?
We have traditions to observe
What will the in-laws think?
It should be red
Or at least strawberry pink.
I looked at my dream saree
In glee
Deep purple
A touch of royalty and elegance
A spring of violets on my wavy hair
And a sheaf of purple orchids
On my arm
Completed the picture.
The whispers were quite audible
What a beautiful saree!
I looked at mum.
She was beaming
Proud of her
Purplish daughter.
Keerthi Wijekulasuriya
Purple
When I flunked my A/L
Purple with rage
Mother cried.
What can I do
If I don’t have
the brains?
By contrast
Father didn’t
Turn purple.
‘All can’t pass exams
Don’t blame him.’
In my adult life
I enjoyed a purple patch
‘cos I had a nose for news -
A balding interviewer
Didn’t get asked for certificates.
R.S. Karunaratne
Amare
Violet Dusk, and the sanctuary beneath
The amaranthine banner of sky –
High noon, and a mulberry tang
Bittersweet on our lips –
Early dawn, gold and mauve, caressing the air
Where you should be –
And half-past three, when the world is damson,
And darkness aphrosidiacal. Our time.
And your eyes flash amethyst – born of alexandrite, never to be mine –
But for now we live outside the lines. The flames empurple us –
We move in shadow, cherish the afterglow.
I will be gone with the monsoon. Reach for me,
Crimson sparks through the woodsmoke.
Pretend we can burn forever.
Shanela Ranaraja
The Honeymoon Gift
Mala was deeply touched as she opened the box.
The words on the cover read:
‘For my darling honeymoon child.’
The purple silk sari shimmering inside
Had been her father’s gift to his radiant young bride.
As a child Mala had been entranced by its beauty.
She remembered how she had wrapped it around herself
And tottered in her mother’s high heels
to the amusement of her parents.
When her father died, her mother put the sari away.
By the time Mala discovered it, her mother was also dead.
The purple sari was her beloved mother’s last gift.
Chitra Premaratne Stuiver