Ekama Magaka Lyrics by Priya SooriyasenaPunsiri Soysa

To walk along one and the same road, measuring our steps together
For our shadows to tangle into one on the same ground
For the cup of mead to be filled with the water of love
(My one wish is that you become mine…)

The flower that blooms on the vine is no burden to the vine
The bees come drifting by, casting their glances
(Don’t give away the love that has settled in my heart to some other land…)
(Don’t run away, out of my world…)

To walk along one and the same road, measuring our steps together…

To my world your little face is the moon
Peeking in from the edge, stirring up feelings
(By your merit, soon, close to my home…)
(May flowers bloom, fanning a gentle breeze…)

To walk along one and the same road, measuring our steps together…
(My one wish is that you become mine…)

A young man is telling the girl he loves exactly what he wants from life, and it is a simple thing. He wants the two of them to walk the same road, side by side, taking each step in time with the other. The picture of their shadows tangling together on the ground is his way of saying he wants their lives to fold into one, two people so close that even the shapes they cast on the earth can no longer be told apart. When he asks for the cup of mead to be filled with the water of love, he is reaching for the old image of the honeyed wedding drink, but he swaps in love itself as the thing that fills it. After all that, his wish comes down to one plain line: that she becomes his.

In the middle of the song a small worry creeps in. He compares her to a flower blooming on a vine, and the bees that come drifting around it, casting their looks. In Sinhala love poetry the bee circling a flower is the standing image of other suitors, the men who notice a beautiful girl and try their luck. So when he says the flower is no burden to the vine, he is gently telling her she is no weight on him at all, he will gladly carry the love, and in the same breath he pleads with her not to hand the love he holds in his heart to some other place, not to slip away and leave his world. It is the quiet fear of any young man in love, that someone else might take her first.

The last verse is the tenderest. He calls her little face the moon of his whole world, a face that peeks in from the edge of his sky and stirs everything in him. The moon here is the familiar Sinhala image of a calm, gentle beauty, light that softens the dark rather than dazzles. He closes by wishing that, through her own goodness, flowers will one day bloom near his home with a soft breeze moving through them. That last picture is a homely dream of married life, of her coming to his house and a quiet, blossoming happiness growing there. The whole song is one steady, unembellished prayer to share one road, one home, and one life with the person he loves.