Atharaman Wela Lyrics by Yuki Navaratne

Read it first, then I will write and give it, thinking,
joining word to word together,
turning over the reasons I love you one by one,
the moment you made to leave, there I see you

Why this lightning across my eyes,
letters writing themselves on my heart,
I cannot bear to hold the thought…

She sets down soft feet,
she comes walking on flowers,
the one who was right beside me, my own heart left stranded…
Is the night even mine, I wonder,
because you are so delicate,
the one who was right beside me, my own heart left stranded..

The star has not left the sky,
you have not pierced through and left me,
there is no reason for sleeplessness anywhere near,
so why, I wonder, are we this far apart

This is a tender love song about a man so taken with someone that he is left atharaman, stranded, inside his own heart. He wants to set his feelings down carefully, joining word to word, listing the reasons he loves her one by one, and the moment she turns to leave is the moment he sees her most clearly.

The feeling overwhelms him. Lightning crosses his eyes, letters write themselves on his heart, and he cannot hold the thought steady. He describes her the way besotted Sinhala lyrics do, so graceful that she seems to walk on flowers, and each time he circles back to the same helpless line: the one who was right beside me, and yet my own heart is stranded.

The last verse is quietly puzzled, and that is its charm. The star has not fallen from the sky, she has not wounded him or walked away, there is no real reason he should be lying awake, and still he cannot understand why the two of them feel so far apart. It captures that particular ache of early love where nothing is wrong and everything is somehow just out of reach.