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100
Words
Melody
Thank you for the many contributions you
have sent to 100 Words on Melody. The theme for August is Centre.
Please send in your contributions before July 28 to:
Madhubhashini Ratnayake,
C/o The Sunday Times,
8, Hunupitiya Cross Rd.,
Colombo.
Melody of
music
Sing me a song, Mum,
Tell me a tale
Of little boys and girls
Or of ships that sail.
She responded with a cuddle.
A little girl is like a melody
Quavers and tremolos,
Up and down scales
Effervescent arpeggios,
Dreams of bridal veils
Ponderous minims,
Slow semibreves.
Harmony as fresh as
Summer rain on leaves
Life, too, is like a melody
The allegro of a heartbeat
The crescendo of passion.
While Time weaves
The dance of a sunrise
With chords of gloom.
And surely,
The melody must end.
Andante, andante,
Slowly, softly
As it should.
Caryll Sela.
At
the piano
"No, Paul. Where is the melody? I cannot hear
it," sighed his music teacher in despair.
Paul looked
down at the piano's ivory keys guiltily. He hadn't been practising.
"Listen
to the melody. Feel it run through your fingers, Paul." She
rapped his knuckles.
He looked at
the complicated notes on the page in dismay and attempted to play
once more.
"You are
thumping the keys like an elephant," she scolded.
He ended with
a resounding forte.
"And drowning
the melody! Play it again, until I am satisfied."
Paul groaned
inwardly. This was going to be a long class.
Reema Muhusin.
Ayubowan
Through mountains
Rocks and forest
Passing barren fields
Crossing the rivers
Ignoring rusted villagers
I walk to a "difficult" school
Every late morning
Scratch the signature
Above the red line
Below the red time.
Before the mud
wall
Facing the blackboard
Dirty pupils
Nourished by poverty
Wearing unclean clothes
With safety pin buttons
Stand innocently
Say 'Ayubowan.'
And that's the greatest melody
I have ever heard.
A. Prabhath.
The
lost melody
The morning sunshine peeped through the open window. The dawn chorus
was beginning. Three birds, parents and a young one, came and sat
on a branch of the mango tree near the window. They began to sing.
It was beautiful. A woman was looking at them through the window.
A gentle breeze was blowing. The woman looked at her gray hair.
A tear rolled down her hollow eyes. A heavy wind blew. She looked
at the mango tree again. The bird family had disappeared. Another
bird came and sat on the mango tree. But it wasn't singing.
K.K.G.I. Dilmini
The melody
of life
We flattened many ranges of mountains,
emptied the water
from the ocean....
Cut down the trees
in the forest
threw the moon and the sun
away....
Tore the clouds,
in the sky
we destroyed
all things
in the world
to seek them
But,
We couldn't find yet
the melody
of life
Yasodha Thamarasi Dharmathilake
Encounter
Strange encounter....
As bold as the crash of the waves
against the rocky shore;
soft and surreptitious,
like the crowning foam;
Dangerous,
like a sheer, unguarded, fall;
As enchanting as the long chords of moonlight,
reverberating in the tense air,
with the depth of feeling,
and the sweetness of longing....
The melody of
stolen moments
the song of the accidental,
the unexpected,
the unallowable.
That brief encounter....
.... with the intensity of fleeting comfort,
the sadness of what cannot be,
and the inevitability of a dying melody.
Coomerene Rodrigo.
The
melody within....
Don't call back your heart; let it go,
blow out the candle, take a walk on the shore.
Give the waves
a chance to break across stone walls,
Ask the wind quietly, to enter the banquet hall.
Open the windows and bring the grass in,
Take a deep breath and you'll find the melody within.
Discard your
earrings, and push back your hair.
Take off your shoes; let your pockets go bare.
And when the dark night has fallen asleep,
There! Listen to the melodies that you've begun to reap.
Devmin Palihakkara.
Nocturnal
melody
The evening breeze dances through the trees
An invisible Pan with his pipes
Shaking the leaves till they ring like shy wind chimes
Playing a serenade
to the moon
The corner brook plays accompaniment
A bubbling minuet
On a keyboard of pebbles and stones
punctuated by joyful trills
Of sudden minute waterfalls.
Amongst the
silver-clad branches
An unseen soloist
Softly sings a quiet epic
Of a day gone by
Notes falling like evening dew
He is supported by a differential Greek chorus
Of tenor frogs
And in the deepening shadows
Silent cicadas
Hum their applause for this
Unwritten symphony
Ruwanthi Ariyaratne.
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