Sulangak Wela

Become a wind and come find me,
be near me like a shadow,
the day we met, my heart was bound in love,
my whole life, my love is for you alone..
heart-captured maiden, stay near me,
become a wind and come find me

You told me, wrapped against my body on the riverbank,
hidden in the grove as we kissed,
I felt such comfort,
on this cooling riverbank,
my swan who nestled close to me,
“let us stay bound like this forever”,
so said my princess,
don’t you still know it, still know that secret?
it is you I seek, you I long for every day

I came as before, I searched, you weren’t on the riverbank,
like flowing water that will not stay close, where did you go?
as though the whirlpool had turned cruel,
why did you leave me weeping?
I weep here on this riverbank,
why did you leave me and go?
it is you I seek, still searching for that face

Become a wind, and every day I go on searching

The day we met, my heart was bound in love,
my whole life, my love is for you alone..
heart-captured maiden, stay near me,
become a wind and come find me

A tender love song that turns into a song of loss, set entirely on a riverbank. Its refrain is a plea to a love who has drifted away: become a wind and come find me, be near me like a shadow. From the day they met, the singer says, his heart was bound, and his whole life’s love belongs to her alone.

The middle is warm memory. He recalls her wrapped against him on the riverbank, the two of them hidden in the grove as they kissed, and the comfort he felt; his swan, nestled close, once promised, let us stay bound like this forever. He clings to that secret vow: don’t you still remember? It is you I seek, you I long for every day.

Then the loss lands. He came back as before and searched, but she was not on the riverbank, gone like flowing water that will not stay. As though the whirlpool had turned cruel, he weeps and asks the questions that have no answer, why did you make me cry, why did you leave me and go? And still, every day, he keeps becoming a wind, searching for her face. Sung by Nalin Perera to words by Nandana Wickramage, it is a gentle, aching song about a riverbank love that promised forever and then vanished, and a man who keeps searching the water for her.