Sandawathiye

My moon lady…
Telling myself you were mine,
I sat there looking up at the sky
Looking up at the sky
In the time it takes to blink,
even in that tiny moment,
you hid from me behind a cloud
Why, my moon lady?

You won’t stay within my sight
Why do you go out like a lamp at this hour?
Why hurt me, why leave me crying
Moon lady, why did you leave me alone?
My moon lady…

He calls her his sandawathiya, his moon lady, and that one word carries the whole song. Sinhala songs have used the moon for a beautiful, beloved woman for centuries, so calling her that is both a compliment and a warning about what is coming. The moon belongs to the sky, not to the person watching it.

The opening is a man standing outside with his head tilted back, happy, telling himself she is his. That is the only settled moment in the song, and it lasts about as long as one blink. He lowers his eyelids for a second, opens them, and a cloud has slid across her. Nothing dramatic happened. She simply is not there any more, and he never even saw it happen.

What makes the image hurt is how ordinary it is. Clouds cross the moon every night. He does not accuse her of betraying him or running off with someone else, and the song names no villain. Whatever came between them was quiet and quick, and by the time he noticed, it was done. All he is left with is the question he keeps asking the sky, why.

The second half drops the picture and speaks plainly. She will not stay where he can see her. The word he uses for what she does is the word for a lamp going out, a light that was burning and now is not, which is a colder thing than a light being taken away. By the last line he has stopped asking where she went and starts asking why she left him standing there alone. Anyone who has watched someone go slowly out of their life, without a fight and without an explanation, knows exactly the sky he is looking at.