Malak Wage Lyrics by Rookantha GunathilakaWindy Goonatillake

Like a flower, you are beautiful, my girl,
shapely as a mountain stream, my girl,
sweet-scented as the breeze, my girl,
yet your heart has turned to stone, like a rock

It was because of you that I lived,
it was because of love that I wore myself out,
my heart broke into fragments,
cast aside in a heap of refuse

Like a flower…

I stand watching the road until you come,
endlessly I sit counting the days,
do not cry, do not grieve,
do not come home too late at night

Like a flower…

A bittersweet love song that praises a woman and mourns her coldness in the same breath. Like a flower you are beautiful, the singer says, shapely as a mountain stream, sweet as the breeze, piling up tender images only to end each thought with the hard one: and yet your heart has turned to stone. Her beauty and her hardness are held together, and that contradiction is the whole ache of the song.

The middle lays his devotion bare. It was because of her that he lived at all, and because of love that he wore himself out; when it failed, his heart broke into fragments and was cast aside like refuse on a rubbish heap, a stark image of feeling utterly discarded. This is love that gave everything and was thrown away.

And yet the last verse is not bitter but tender and worried. He still stands watching the road until she comes, still sits counting the days, and his parting words are pure care, not anger: don’t cry, don’t grieve, and don’t come home too late at night. Even discarded, his first instinct is to protect her. Sung as a duet by Rookantha and Windy Goonatillake to Rookantha’s own words, it is a portrait of love that endures even a stone-cold heart.