Sanda Ohomamay Lyrics by Kithsiri Jayasekara

The moon is just like this, just like you
coming in secret, it wakes my heart
even when the flowers bloom, it is just like you
sitting inside my heart, it strums the strings
The moon is just like this..

The moon smiled too, just like you
and it was for that I drew close
it sheds its beams and soaks my loving heart
the merit of that belongs to you alone
The moon is just like this..

It gives off flower-fragrance, just like you
and it was for that secret I fell in love
a poem takes shape, and I am undone
the harvest of that love is all yours
The moon is just like this…

This is a song built on a single, sweetly repeated discovery: everything beautiful reminds him of her. The refrain, “the moon is just like this, just like you,” sets the pattern, and then each verse finds her again in something lovely, the moon slipping in secretly to wake his heart, flowers opening, moonbeams falling. She has become the measure of all beauty, so that he cannot look at the natural world without seeing her in it.

The tenderness deepens as the song goes. When the moon smiles, it smiles like her, and that is what drew him near; when its beams fall and “soak his loving heart,” he insists the credit, the “merit,” belongs to her alone. The word he uses, pina, is the Buddhist idea of merit, and giving her the merit for all this beauty is his gentle way of saying she is the source of every good and lovely thing he feels.

The last verse ties beauty to creation. The flower-fragrance is hers too, and it was for that secret sweetness that he fell in love; now “a poem takes shape and he is undone,” love turning him into a poet. He ends by handing her everything again: “the harvest of that love is all yours.” What the listener is left with is a soft, grateful kind of adoration, a man who sees his beloved reflected in the moon, the flowers and the very poem he is singing, and who lays the whole harvest of it at her feet.