Picking Eraminiya

Along the grassy footpath
Running atop the wide bunk
That walled the brook from Piyadasa’s paddy-fields,
We shuffled on through the dense sedge,
Peppered with Nidhikumba bushes.

Lining the huddle of king coconut trees
Over the brook,
Like old sentinels,
Stood a row of Frangipani trees,
Bearing more flowers than leaves on its gnarled branches
The mute witnesses to the start of time.

We forded the shallow brook
Whose murky waters were infested
With larvae and tadpoles that swam forever
And 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 friend, the nimbler picker,
To pick the ripe nuts.

He picked the nuts off the thorny branch,
Into a habaralagotuwa,
Teetering on a scrawny Pila tree,
Teeming with dry prods.

The grazed skin on my palms and forearms,
was smarting and bled.
Still, 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.

Sour and sweet, sweet and sour
The teeny nuts tasted
So like life.
So much so like life.