Road

An old woman

with unruly graying hair cradles

a bundle of wood,
long and twisted.

Telephone poles lie abandoned,
covered in weeds.

Boy swinginging a stick, a

worn towel wrapped
around his thin shoulders

like a shawl. A

little girl with a flowered skirt

pauses as she heads into a temple,

gazes at our bus.

Roof-tiles
in the old-fashioned

arched style,
troughs and peaks of

asymmetrical
aging curves.

The roads begin to wind
as we climb. Steep
side lanes
cut into the hillside and
disappear
into the trees.

Old man in white,
jowls bunched under moustache.

Half-made earthen steps
weave along the road

stony, wild.

Two dogs wrestle in the grass.

Roadside stalls
on the kadugannawa climb
have dangling
harsh bright
florescent lights.

The hillside falls away
below
The bus ahead is crowded, 
passengers struggling for
space and grip, I
feel uncomfortable, watching them
from our comfy seats.

Curtains are neatly tied
in the window
of a wooden shack.

Old poster fading on a tree trunk,

bright signs

stuck in paddy fields.

A tree like a crouching witch

with branches
like gnarled hands.

Bundles of rope
trussed neatly
in a row in a shop verandah.

Squad of orderly milk cans 

in the back of a truck.
Black dog 

resting his snout on cement floor.

In the back of a lorry, a 

boy sits
on crates of empties,

hands clasping the necks

of two bottles

Unhusked corn in piles.

A Jackfruit tree emerges

from the thatched roof

of a small hut

(glimpse of trunk
within).

Someone has used sticks and branches

to weigh down the tagaram roof

of a stall.

Jackfruit split

with ripeness, or a heavy fall,

innards barely visible.

Old fertilizer bags lie abandoned.

Men sitting on tree trunks
on the back of a
truck, one young

and talkative, another

old with white hair.

A child peeks

over the seat of a motorbike.

Vehicle graveyard,
out front a trailer lies tractor-
less, filled
with rusted junk.

Round scar
of a fallen limb on the bole of a tree

We eat at a place called Saruketha (fertile
paddy field)

I like the name,
although the devilled
cuttlefish is bland,

“mee kiri kamu!” (lets eat
buffalo curd!) on a sign

“Bulath vitak!” (betel leaf
bunches!)
on another.

Schoolgirls in pigtails.
Graying hair of a
man on a bicycle.   

A bed on the verandah of a

wattle and daub house

has a red sheet.

Fragments of a poster on a tree.

A tuk tuk driver leans back, foot near handle,

texting on his mobile.

White chest hair on a middle aged man,
his sarong tied high
on his belly.

Breadfruit leaves
turn yellow
on the ground.

House near the rail-tracks, walls
discolored
by time and dirt.

A bamboo grove,
young leaves spiky
and wild.

Old leaves
gather in clumps
on corrugated roofs.

Fuselage of an old van

near a garage. An

old woman

re-ties her waist-cloth.

watching the road.

Idle whip of a cow’s tail.
A thatched roof on stilts protects
an orderly pile of bricks,
there must be a kiln nearby. A
stray dog watches
the buses go by,
Drying clothes weigh a line into an awkward curve
Houses painted a fading lime green
and dusty pink.

A man sits by a pile of unhusked corn, his

blackened pot
ready for customers.

Another pot,
covered.

smoke rising.