Sansaraye Ma

Have we met before, somewhere in saṃsāra (the cycle of rebirth)?
Did the lure in your eyes leave me drunk?
In this loneliness, in the cold of evening,
I met you there on the riverbank.

Here in this cradle of flowers, you are the little flower bird
and a smile breaks over me.
Tonight will fall, tomorrow will dawn,
my sweet one, will we meet again?
Even the flowers will startle, and lean in close to look,
and the stars will gather in crowds tonight, searching for us.

Are you a fairy?
A maiden born out of a flower?
Why are you alone? Forgive me for asking.
I am no fairy,
no maiden born out of a flower.
Why would I hide these sweet feelings?
In this saṃsāra, like gold and its shine,
we have always matched, and it showed itself as love.

In the stream, the brook, the lake, the water,
in the sun, the moon, the tree, the vine,
our song of joy in love was sung.
Looking into your eyes,
I can’t say it, so don’t ask,
why do I hide these feelings of love?
In this field of flowers, on every petal,
our love song is being written.

Have we met before, somewhere in saṃsāra…

Here in this cradle of flowers…

A young man meets a girl by the river on a cold evening, and the first thing he says is not her name or a compliment but a question about lifetimes. Have we met before, somewhere back in saṃsāra? Sri Lankan listeners hear that with no explanation needed. In a Buddhist way of thinking, this life is one bead on a very long string, so when a stranger feels instantly familiar the natural thought is that the two of you have already crossed paths in a life you cannot remember. He is not flirting with that line. He means it.

The second thing he notices is her eyes, and the word he reaches for is a hunter’s word. Inava is the lure a trapper puts out for a bird, so he is saying he walked into her look the way a bird walks into bait, and now he is drunk on it. He does not sound sorry about it. From there the evening turns generous. He calls her the little bird among the flowers, and the flowers themselves lean in to stare at her, and the stars come out in crowds to go looking for the two of them. Nature is not scenery here, it is the audience.

Then the song opens up into a duet, and this is the turn that makes it. He asks the old question, are you a fairy, are you a girl born out of a flower, the way village stories describe a beauty that cannot be from around here. She answers him plainly. No fairy, no flower-born maiden, just a girl standing here, and then she asks the better question back, why would either of us hide what we already feel? Her line about gold and its shine is the quiet promise in the whole song. Gold and its glow are not two things that were introduced to each other, and neither are they.

The last verse scatters the love outward until it is everywhere. In the stream and the brook and the lake, in the sun and the moon, in the tree and the vine, the same song keeps getting sung, and on every petal in the field their story is still being written. That is why the ending feels settled rather than anxious. They started the evening as strangers on a riverbank, and by the end they are talking about forever with the calm of two people who suspect they have done this before.