Picking Eraminiya

Along the wide bunk,
Partitioning the brook from the paddy-fields,
We shuffled on through the dense sedge,
Peppered with thorny Nidhikumba brushes,
The grassy, prickly robe,
Of the plump bunk.
 
Bordering the land,
Over the narrow stream,
Like sentinels,
Stood a row of Temple trees,
The mute witnesses to the birth of Time.
 
We forded the shallow brook,
Where the briery Eraminiya bush,
With its rash of green and scarlet nuts,
Lured us out of our way.
 
I, the taller of the two,
Held down the wiry, springy branch,
Scuffing the softer skin on my palms,
For my dumpy friend, the nimbler picker,
To pick the ripe nuts.
 
He swept the nuts off the thorny branch,
Into a Habarala gotuwa,
Teetering on a scrawny Pila tree,
Teeming with dry prods.
 
The grazed skin on my palms and forearms,
Smarted and bled,
But I held it down,
With grim determination.
 
As soon as we`d harvested enough,
I let up my grip on the prickly branch,
And let it spring back.
 
The teeny nuts tasted sour-sweet,
On my tongue.
 
But I warned myself
Against  surfeiting myself with it,
For I already knew,
It was an efficacious emetic.