Punsanda Rata Awidin Hene Lyrics by Nirosha Virajini

The full moon comes walking to the chena at night, breaking the dark,
Does it kiss the golden maize that shines like threads of gold?
Seeing dreams through the three watches of the night, what use is it to stay at home,
Is my golden one still out guarding the field, without sleep?

Under a sky where flocks of blue stars wink and signal,
I want to go and lean right there on the edge of the verandah.
Parrots who come to eat the sweet mangoes, don’t come tomorrow,
The mango tree has blossomed, but it still bears no fruit.

The full moon, at night…

Pure as gold, my dear one sleeps,
seeing in his dreams the blessing of golden flowered palanquins, that is all.
How will the three lonely watches of the night pass for the two of us,
Is there not enough room on my bed for our golden little son?

The full moon, at night…

A young wife lies awake at home on a bright full-moon night, her little son asleep beside her, while her husband is far off in the chena, the highland field, sitting up in the pel, the raised watch hut, guarding the crop through the night. The whole song is her thinking of him across that distance. She cannot sleep, and her mind keeps travelling out to where he is.

She imagines the moonlight itself “walking” out to the field and breaking the dark, then wonders if that same light is kissing the golden maize that gleams like threads of gold. It is a tender, roundabout way of saying she wishes she were the one out there with him. The maize ripening “like gold” is more than a pretty image, the harvest is the family’s livelihood and their shared hope, the thing he is staying awake all night to protect. When she asks what use it is to lie at home dreaming through the three watches of the night while he keeps watch alone, you can hear the ache of a married woman who would rather be beside her husband than safe and apart from him.

The mango imagery in the second verse carries the heart of it. She tells the parrots not to come eating the sweet mangoes tomorrow, because the tree has only just flowered and has no fruit yet. In Sinhala love poetry a flowering tree that has not yet fruited is a quiet image for young love, or a young marriage, that is still tender and full of promise but has not yet ripened into all it will become. She is gently guarding that promise, the way her husband guards the field. There is shyness in it too, the longing of a wife who misses her husband but says it sideways, through stars and mangoes and moonlight.

By the last verse the tenderness settles onto the two who are with her in spirit, the husband she calls “pure as gold” and the “golden little son” sleeping on her bed. Even the child’s dream is gentle, golden flowered palanquins, the stuff of a small boy’s happy sleep. Her real question is the loneliest and simplest one, how will the long empty hours of the night pass for the two of them, apart like this. Rathna Sri Wijesinghe gives no answer, and that is the point. The song leaves you with a woman awake under a full moon, her child breathing softly beside her, her thoughts out in the dark field with the man she loves, holding the whole quiet weight of a marriage stretched across a single night.