Dannawada Adare Neethiya

Still I keep writing about you,
knowing you will never read it
do you know the law of love?
you feel it as deeply as it once hurt…

I carry a weight heavy as Namunukula,
watching the road until it sings
do you know the law of love?
it hurts as deeply as you once felt it….

I am still at the place where time stopped,
even the Galle Fort will tell you so
still, under a sky that has no shade,
new hearts go on weeping

Still, now and then, a thread of silver
pulls upward in my chest
though I had thought I’d turned to black stone,
my tears keep falling into the sea…

A quiet, aching song of unsent love, addressed to someone who has gone. The singer keeps writing about her, he admits, knowing full well she will never read a word of it, and offers the song’s refrain as a bitter little truth: do you know the law of love? You feel it exactly as much as it once hurt. Love and pain, he says, are weighed on the same scale.

He gives his grief the weight of the land itself. He carries a burden heavy as Namunukula, one of Sri Lanka’s great mountains, and waits by the road endlessly, until it sings. The refrain turns the knife: it hurts as deeply as you once felt it, a love returned now only as pain of the same size.

The last images fix him in a stopped moment. He is still standing where time halted, and even the old Galle Fort, that unmoving witness, would vouch for it; under a sky with no shade, new hearts keep weeping. Then the loveliest, saddest turn: now and then a thread of silver still pulls upward in his chest, and though he had believed he had hardened into black stone, his tears keep falling into the sea. He thought he had gone numb, but the grief still moves in him. Sung by Abhisheka Wimalaweera to a melody by Mihindu Ariyaratne, it is a portrait of a heartbreak that refuses to petrify.