Hemin Sare Awith Oya

You came to me softly
and whispered in my ear before you went
that you are mine and no one else’s
And in my heart, oh, this is all I ask
that you become mine too
so I can keep you safe all my life…

Even with everyone watching
I want to come close to you
and kiss your lips
Even if they laugh at me
my darling, all I want
is to keep looking at you….

With all these feelings in my heart
just standing here looking at you
life starts to feel too short…

You came to me softly
and whispered in my ear before you went
that you are mine and no one else’s…

In the sky of the heart, as far as this sky reaches
if you are ever alone there, you will feel my love
In the depth of a heart as rough as this ocean
if you sink down into it, you will feel my love
I will break off a strand of the thoughts in my heart
write it out and weave it into a song
and keep it beside you with love, my darling

You came to me softly…

A young man is still holding on to a moment that lasted only a second. She leaned in, said something in his ear, told him she was his and nobody else’s, and walked away. He has been carrying it around ever since. The whole song grows out of that one whisper, and out of the thing he could not say back at the time: that he wants her to be his too, and that he wants to look after her for the rest of his life.

The second verse is where you can tell how far gone he is. He does not care who is standing around. He wants to walk up to her in front of everyone and kiss her, and if people laugh at him, let them laugh. That is the ordinary bravery of a first serious love, the age where the whole village can talk and it still does not matter. And then the tenderest line in the song: with all these feelings sitting in his chest, just standing there looking at her, life starts to feel too short. He is not asking for anything dramatic. He wants more time to look.

The bridge reaches for the two things Sinhala songwriting always reaches for when a feeling is too big for plain words, the sky and the sea. He tells her that if she ever finds herself alone, out where the sky of her own heart stretches as wide as the sky above, she will feel his love there. And if she goes down into the rough, deep water of her own heart, she will feel it there too. The point is not distance or depth for their own sake. He is saying there is nowhere she can go, high or low, calm or storm-tossed, where he will not already be waiting.

He finishes by naming what he is actually doing. He pulls one strand out of the tangle of thoughts in his heart, writes it down, ties it into a song, and leaves the song next to her. “Raththaran”, the word he keeps calling her, means gold, and every Sri Lankan hears it as the everyday word parents and lovers use for the person they treasure most. The song is the gift, and the last line circles back to that soft whisper, the way a memory you love keeps returning on its own.