Yanna Giya Da

The day you went to leave, you fanned up the fire of love,
if you know the way to put it out, teach me before you go
if you cannot give as much as you gave, do not take the affection back,
become a scattered memory in a heart, and stay far away

I smile, bearing it, but the wound deep beneath the heart
will not heal until the day I see Nibbana
my love, you do not know how much I loved you,
strange as a tree that blooms even after it is cut down and thrown to the ground

A woman like the kinnari from the Chandakinnara tale,
why I was never granted her, I think, was a sorrowful dream
the robes you wore are fragrant still, though you left long ago
I will bear it like a mountain, for letting you go is also a love

This is a dignified, aching song about letting someone go. On the day she left, the singer says, she fanned up the fire of love and walked away, so he asks her, almost calmly, that if she knows how to put that fire out, she teach him before she goes. If she cannot give as much love as she once did, he pleads, then at least do not take back what she already gave; just become a scattered memory in his heart and stay far away.

He carries the pain behind a smile. He can keep smiling, he admits, but the wound deep under the heart will not heal until the day he sees Nibbana, a very Sri Lankan way of saying the hurt will follow him through this life and beyond. You never knew how much I loved you, he tells her, and compares himself to the most stubborn kind of love there is: a tree that keeps blooming even after it has been cut down and thrown to the ground.

The last verse reaches for an old story. He wonders why he was never granted a woman like the kinnari from the Chandakinnara tale, the celestial half-bird beloved who is the classic image of perfect, devoted love, and decides it must have been a sorrowful dream. The robes she wore are fragrant still though she has long gone, and yet he ends on grace rather than grievance: I will bear it like a mountain, he says, because letting you go is also a kind of love. It is heartbreak carried with real dignity.