An Old Friend Poem by Palitha Ranatunge

An evening bird chirp, day time cuckoos resting
In secret cages. Dragging its enormous shell
The snail of time crawling.

The old car at the corner of the garage, not worthy
For road, resting peacefully for I cannot sending it
To the crusher's depot.

It bears a heavy fragrance of a soul - dried tear drops
And sweating of hardest Laboring days, long gone.
It has the secrets of a youth and appreciations of
Apprentices of a struggle,
Their moans and whispers when feeling a world
That was then alien and strange,

It's like an eroded pale moon growing up day by day
It is noticeable only when full moon lights the night.

It would have been perished, decayed and corroded
Sinking into a wet sand smelling of old and deserted,
If not been taken care of, embracing it as a souled entity
Talking to it in isolation about the whereabouts of them
Thinking of unblinking gleeful eyes that has erased
Memories of a time that tragically passed in haste.