Parasathu Yaya Lyrics by Chamara Weerasinghe

In the shadow of sun and moon
in the swing of black and white
is it being cradled,
this garden of humankind?
Whether in tears or in a smile,
in the calm meadow of life,
let us meet for a moment,
we, in the parasathu grove

Though painted with a rainbow,
dream palaces
in a single blink
may scatter to dust, our wishes
Will only a trace linger at the edge of the eye,
the coloured feelings of the dream world.. coloured feelings

In the shadow of sun and moon…

Kissing many hearts,
the silent sighs offered to the world,
are they not one fragrance,
the noble gift given to the world?
To that fragrance the world’s
every blossoming flower would lose.. every flower

In the shadow of sun and moon…

This is a gentle, poetic love song about wanting to meet, even for a moment, in a place set apart from the ordinary world. That place is the parasathu yaya, a grove of the parasathu, the coral tree kin to the celestial parijata of legend, which Sinhala poetry keeps for a blessed, almost heavenly meadow. Under the shadow of sun and moon, in the swing of light and dark, the singer asks whether this garden of humankind is being gently rocked.

The middle turns wistful about how fragile all of it is. Dream palaces painted with a rainbow can scatter to dust in a single blink, and he wonders whether only a trace of those coloured feelings will linger at the corner of the eye. It is the quiet fear that love and dreams, however lovely, may not hold.

It ends on what does hold. All the silent sighs and the many hearts offered to the world, he says, are really one fragrance, a noble gift, and to that fragrance every blossoming flower on earth would gladly lose. The song lifts love above the body, treating a shared tenderness as something finer than any flower, worth meeting for even once in the parasathu grove.