Mage Sanda Awith Lyrics by Victor Rathnayake

My moon has come
laying the jasmine buds and the stars to rest
secretly kissing the cheeks of the night
in the blazing light of noon
my moon has come

Hiding my heart in a corner of the grove
going down to the water to kiss the lotus
look at me, the one who fooled the bee
my moon has come

Casting shame upon the sun
smearing love across a rainbow
look at me, so deceived
my moon has come

In Sinhala song the beloved is almost always “the moon,” and this poem takes that old image and pushes it somewhere strange and beautiful. His moon has come, but not at night, she rises “in the blazing light of noon.” A moon at midday breaks the natural order, and that is the point: his love is so overwhelming that it overturns time itself, the beloved outshining even the sun. She soothes the jasmine buds and the stars to sleep and kisses the cheeks of the night in secret, as if the whole sky bends around her arrival.

The second verse moves into the classic garden of Sinhala love poetry. He hides his heart in a corner of the grove, goes down to the water and kisses the lotus, and calls himself the one “who fooled the bee.” The bee and the lotus are the oldest pair in this imagery, the bee forever drawn to the flower, and by taking the lotus himself he has outwitted even that. It is the giddy boast of a man drunk on love.

The last verse turns the paradox on himself. He “casts shame upon the sun” and paints his love across a rainbow, colours flung over the whole sky, and then admits, “look at me, so deceived.” That is the sting under the beauty: he has been dazzled, perhaps fooled, by a love this bright. What the listener is left with is a dreamlike, intoxicated vision, the beloved as a noon-day moon who upends the heavens, and a lover who cannot tell whether he has conquered the world or simply been enchanted out of his senses.