Sanda Lyrics by Tharindu Damsara

Sleepless, wet eyes,
why hide them any longer?
if it is too hard, then stay,
o moon, slowly set and go

Gathering the tender feelings
that were left, not yet dead,
I draw her image, filling my heart,
so the new-moon dark won’t be felt,
if it is too hard, then stay,
o moon, slowly set and go

From here on, into the darkness,
I will not call it a new-moon night,
everything that is destined to set,
I will call the moon,
if it is too hard, then stay,
o moon, slowly set and go

A gorgeous, tender heartbreak song built entirely around the moon, sanda, and its setting. The singer no longer bothers to hide his sleepless, tear-wet eyes, and speaks gently to the moon itself: if it is too hard for you, then stay; but if you must go, o moon, set slowly. The unhurried setting of the moon becomes an image for letting a love go slowly, without a sudden plunge into the dark.

The middle explains why he dreads the dark. Gathering up the tender feelings that survived, “not yet dead,” he draws her image and fills his heart with it, so that the amaavaka, the moonless new-moon night, of her absence won’t be felt. As long as the moon lingers, he can hold her picture and keep the darkness at bay.

The close turns the whole thing into a quiet vow. From now on, he says, he refuses to call the coming darkness a new-moon night; instead, everything that is fated to set, he will call the moon, choosing to see even loss as gentle moonlight. Sung by Tharindu Damsara to words by Hiran Chathuranga, it is a soft, aching song about facing the night without the one you love, and asking even the setting moon to be kind about leaving.