They speak in the language of freedom
with polished tongues and televised grace,
their words wrapped in silk,
democracy, rights, justice,
like sacred offerings placed before the world.

Yet their shadows stretch longer than their promises.

They draw maps with invisible ink,
borders that move when it suits them,
lines that bleed when crossed by others
but vanish when they step across.

They say, “Be sovereign.”
But whisper, “Only within our design.”

From marble halls and mirrored chambers
they issue decrees dressed as advice,
sanctions dressed as concern,
wars dressed as rescue missions.
The drums of intervention
beat softly at first,
then thunder over distant skies.

And the smaller nations,
those with ancient rivers and tired histories,
stand like trees in borrowed wind,
their roots deep,
their branches shaken by storms
they did not summon.

“Follow the rules,” the giants insist,
while rewriting them in the same breath.
“Respect the law,” they declare,
while carving exceptions into its spine.

A child learns early
that fairness is a fragile thing,
yet here are empires
who never outgrew that lesson,
only mastered the art of disguising it.

They celebrate elections abroad
when the outcome echoes their voice,
and call it chaos
when it dares to speak another truth.

They have scant respect for life,

Not even for women and children.

As long as its slmeone else’s

Everyone is disposable.

Their ideals,
bright as constellations,
guide speeches, not actions.
For in the quiet corridors of power,
morality bends
like light around a massive star.

Still, the world watches.

Not always loudly,
not always bravely,
but with a memory that does not forget,
and a patience older than empires.

Because even the tallest towers
cast cracks at their foundations,
and even the loudest voices
cannot silence the echo
of their own contradictions.

And somewhere,
in the soil of the “lesser” nations,
a different story grows,
not of obedience,
but of endurance…
and the quiet, unyielding hope
that one day
justice will speak
without an accent of power.

Humanity breathes in a static hum,

Watching the dial, the clock, the drum,

Four souls climb the ladder of light

To pierce the veil of the velvet night.

No longer tethered to the dust we know,

They watch the blue marble shrink and glow,

Until the horizon was a curve of bone,

Travelers in space, adrift and alone.

Swinging behind the lunar curve,

steady hands and iron nerve.

In the shadow of the craters deep,

No sense of day, no sense of sleep.

Where the earthly sun doesn’t shine,

The radio dies on the jagged line.

A world of grey, a sea of stone,

The most distant men have ever known,

Circling the silence of a timeless shore,

Before the engine gives its thunderous roar.

Gravity reached out with a lover’s grip,

Pulling the heat-scarred, weary ship.

They come trailing fire through thinning air,

A falling star with stories to share.

The sky turns crimson, the friction screams,

Bringing back vision that a planet dreams.

Parachutes bloom, three flowers of silk,

In a sky as soft as honey and milk.

A gentle descent to the rolling blue,

Where the salt spray kisses the hull anew.

A bobbing cork in the Pacific swell,

Safe from the heavens where giants dwell.

Four hearts beating to the rhythm of the tide,

With the dust of the moon tucked deep inside.

The soil is still fresh, a dark wound in the earth,

the ink on the ledger is older, deeper,

a map of costs we never asked for,

though inevitable.

You told me once, breath thinned

by the hospital hum,

“Keep the roof steady, even if the foundation shakes.”

I gave you my word

in a room that smelled of antiseptic and endings.

Now, the silence you left

is filled with the scream of sirens,

a flickering screen,

the cold click of a calculator at midnight.

The mailbox is a mouth

that only knows how to bite.

Red-inked notices,

final warnings,

the frantic pulse of late fees,

tax returns,

they say the grid doesn’t care about grief,

only the flow of transfers,

the clearing of checks.

I sit where you sat,

under the dim glow of a lamp

barely able to keep burning,

unraveling the knots of frauds,

“missing” funds,

suspense accounts,

weak controls,

ghosts in the bytes

stealing what little

that people have saved.

I am the shield now,

who filters the bad news

before it reaches the kitchen table.

I tell her the lights flickered

because of the wind,

not because I was pleading

with a voice on a headset

to give us ten more days, just ten.

I shoulder the weight of prescriptions,

measuring out health in milligrams and rupees,

trading my sleep for her peace of mind.

It’s a heavy coat to wear,

this responsibility,

tailored in the midst of a financial storm.

There are days I want to scream

at the empty chair,

to ask how you carried it all

without breaking.

But then I see the way the house stays warm,

the way the table is set,

how the cutlery is arranged,

the way the chaos stays outside the front door

because I am holding it shut.

I am the bridge you built

before you fell.

I am the promise kept

in the quiet grind,

turning turmoil

into a steady,

stubborn survival.

Sleep well, old man.

The walls are still standing.

The bills are paid.

Your need fulfilled.

The nest is safe.

Mother Earth breathes in a slow, green lung,

a rhythm written before the first psalm was sung.

The wolf chases the deer into the thicket’s heart,

not out of malice, but to play its lifes part;

the fallen leaf feeds

the soil births the oak,

a silent pact, a soft and ancient yoke.

Everything here has a price and a place.

Rain pays the river to keep up the pace.

Sun trades its fire for the sugar in the leaf.

Predator’s hunger is the meadow’s relief.

A circular rhythm, a hum in the mud,

carried in sap and whispered in blood.

Man arrives with a different math,

carving lines through the flowering path.

He doesn’t just take; he overgrows the glass,

turning wildflower into a memory of grass.

Where woods once sighed,

concrete now screams,

choking lakes and mountain streams.

He broke the circle to build his tower,

mistaking conquest of nature for power.

The gears of the world start to grind and fray,

The gardener forgets he is made of the clay.

The peace is a thin thread, pulled taut and uneven,

fraying at the edges of the world we were given.

The earth is patient, waiting for the sound

of the machine to go quiet and return to the ground.

For the cycle is larger than the hand that defies it,

Nature remains, even as man tries to buy it.

In the mirrored halls of the Levant,

The doctor wears a suit of diplomatic silk,

Speaking of “stability” and “de-escalation”

While clutching a vial of ancient, bitter milk.

He is Dr Jekyll, the “Moderator,”

The one who hosts the summits in the sand,

With a steady hand and a “Humanitarian” mandate, Drafting the redlines on a shifting land.

“We must contain the data leak,” Jekyll sighs,

Adjusting his spectacles to the glare of the drone,

“The system requires a peaceful migration,

A logic where the ‘Security Protocol’ is known.”

But the sun dips low behind the oil rigs,

the “81st Column” begins to bleed.

The silk rips.

The spectacles shatter.

The Doctor dissolves into a different breed.

Out steps Hyde, the “Proxy,” the “Retaliation,”

With a grin like a jagged piece of shrapnel.

He doesn’t speak in “Press Releases” or “Resolutions,”

He speaks in the binary of the muzzle and the shell.

“Peace is a Mickey Mouse program!” Hyde roars, Toppling the “General Ledger” of the border,

“I am the Overflow! I am the Logic Bomb!

I am the chaos that rewrites your Order!”

Jekyll watches from the reflection of a burning well, Trapped in the “Read-Only” memory of his own regret.

He realizes that Hyde wasn’t a “Bug” in the system,

But the “Feature” he programmed and can’t forget.

“Stop!” Jekyll pleads, from the back of the throat,

“Think of the ‘Paper Clip’! Think of the ‘Pillars’!”

But Hyde has already deleted the “Truth” table,

replaced the “Guardians” with the “Killers.”

In the deserts today, the transformation is fast,

One hour a “Summit,” the next a “Strike.”

The world watches the “Mainframe” shudder,

Wondering which face the “Source Code” is like.

Is it the Doctor, with his buckets of aid?

the Monster, with his buckets of fire?

Both fighting for control of the “Registers,”

On a high-tension, geopolitical wire.

And the “81st Column” remains out of balance,

As the Jekyll of the day becomes the Hyde of the night, Two characters trapped in a loop of vengeance,

Under the cold, neon glow of a satellite’s light.

The oven door hinges like a drawbridge of old,

Releasing a steam cloud, courageous and bold.

On the counter, the cardboard, a fortress of white,

Holds the circular spoils of a long Friday night.

But peace is a phantom, a thin, crispy lie,

Once the scent of the garlic hits everyone’s eye.

The Great Topping Conflict begins with a glare,

As Dave eyes the pineapple, mid-kitchen air.

“It’s fruit!” screams the General, a purist named Phil,

“A crime against gluten, a blow to the grill!”

But the Hawaiian Insurgents, with ham as their shield,

Refuse to retreat or to ever give yield.

The Meatball Battalion marches in grease,

Ensuring that napkins will never find peace.

They clash with the Vegans, the Spinach Brigade,

Who fight for a crust where no cow has been laid.

The cutting wheel rolls like a chariot of doom,

Dividing the landscape across the tiled room.

“That slice is much bigger!” the youngest one cries,

With tactical envy deep in his eyes.

A mozzarella wire-trip, a burn on the roof,

Of a mouth that was seeking for hot, cheesy proof.

The parmesan shakers, like cannons, they roar,

Dusting the crusts in a white, salty war.

By the time of the cleanup, the casualties stack:

Three crusts in the corner, EGB turned slack.

The box lies defeated, a greasy remains,

Of a battle for flavor and localized gains.

We sit in the silence of carb-heavy bliss,

Sealing the pact with a napkins’ dry kiss.

For though we may bicker and fight for the slice,

Cold pizza for breakfast is worth any price.

In the shadow of the granite towers,

where the wind is a whetted blade

and the grass bows to the South Pole’s breath,

she moves as a ripple in the tawny scrub,

the Ghost of Patagonia.

The Stalk

At the end of the world, silence is a weapon.

She is a smudge of copper against the grey scree,

padding on paws of velvet and iron.

Her amber eyes are fixed on the skyline,

where the Guanaco, the wild llama,

stands sentinel against the blue-ice clouds.

She does not run; she dissolves.

Through the needle-grass and the whistling thorns,

inching closer while the herd tastes the air.

A sudden coil of muscle, a spring of unleashed gravity,

and she is a blur of teeth and tawny light.

The struggle is brief, a heavy thud on the pampa,

the debt of the wild paid in red

to keep the cycle spinning.

The Season of Plenty

Back at the den, tucked in the throat of a rocky cave,

her shadows emerge: three soot-spotted spirits.

She brings the kill not as a gift, but as a lesson.

They feast in the lee of the mountain,

tugging at hide under the gaze of the condors,

while she licks the dust from their ears

with a tongue like coarse sandpaper.

For a year, her heartbeat is their clock;

her territory is their fortress.

The Severing

But the sun climbs high and the seasons turn cold again,

and the clock of instinct strikes a hollow note.

The bond that was a tether is now a fraying rope.

She looks at them, no longer soft, but lean and sharp,

and the mother-fire goes quiet in her blood.

The departure is not a goodbye, but a ghosting.

One morning, the wind shifts.

She marks the high ridges with a scent that says Mine,

and when they follow, she turns with a low, gutteral hiss,

a warning that the border has been drawn in the frost.

The valley that fed them is now a gauntlet;

the mother who led them is now a stranger.

She vanishes into the granite folds,

heading toward the glaciers to claim the silence once more.

Behind her, at the edge of the earth,

the young ones stand shivering in the gale,

learning the first, hardest law of the pampa:

To survive, they must now become the wind.

Where the Tasman Sea breaks its teeth

against the jagged ribs of the South Island,

the Tawaki, the Fiordland Crested,

moves like a shadow in the emerald drip.

No ice-fields here.

Instead, they navigate a labyrinth of moss,

scrambling over slick, prehistoric roots

where the rainforest breathes heavy and wet.

They are the mountain climbers of the surf,

wearing gold-sulfur eyebrows like lightning bolts

caught against a tuxedo of midnight.

The Hidden Cradle

Deep in the fern-shrouded hollows,

under the gnarled knees of the Rimu trees,

they tuck their secrets in the dark.

Two eggs are laid in the damp earth:

the first, a small rehearsal;

the second, the heavy hope of the season.

They guard the nest as the rain drums a relentless rhythm,

huddled in the cathedral of the deep bush

where the air smells of salt and rotting leaves.

The Hunt in the Cold Current

When the chick emerges, a soot-colored puff,

the hunger begins.

The parent launches from the rocky shelf,

a torpedo of muscle into the churning foam.

They dive into the bruise-colored depths,

chasing the silver flash of squid and krill,

battling the surge of the southern swells

that want to grind the coast to sand.

The Return

Then comes the climb back up,

dripping, weary, heavy with the harvest.

Propped up by angry waves,

They hop from boulder to barnacle,

defying gravity with a webbed-foot grip,

navigating the tangled forest floor

by the internal compass of the heart.

At the burrow’s mouth, the transfer:

a belly-full of the ocean’s bounty

brought home to the quiet of the ferns.

In the mist of the Fiordland twilight,

the chick grows strong on the salt of the sea

and the shelter of the ancient green.

We call it a mercy,

the clicking of the latch,

the soft fleece bed,

the ceramic bowl

filled with calculated science of proteins and grains.

We pull them from mud and the bramble,

from the cold indifference of the stars,

saying, “Now, you are safe.”

The Smallest Stage

We paint the walls

the color of a calm sea

wonder why the cat stares

out of the window

until her eyes become mirrors

of a world she is no longer allowed to touch.

A predator of shadows now,

pouncing on red dots,

feathers on sticks,

queen of a kingdom

that ends at the weather-stripping of the front door.

We have traded her claws for carpets,

her midnight wanderings

for a scheduled nap.

We call it a better life

she will never know

the hunger of a dry season,

she will never know the electricity of the hunt

under a moon that belongs to no one.

The Tethered Spirit

In the park,

the dog strains against the leather,

a thousand generations of wolf

vibrating in the muscle of his neck.

He smells a story three miles away,

a fox,

a rotting leaf,

the musk of a rival,

but the leash snaps him back to the “heel,”

to the paved path,

to the polite etiquette of the sidewalk.

We have curated his wildness

until it fits inside a plastic bag.

We dress him in wool sweaters when it snows,

forgetting his ancestors were the winter itself.

We love him so much

we have made him a reflection of our own comfort,

a living teddy bear

with a heartbeat that was meant to thrum

to the rhythm of the pack.

The Spectacle of the Mask

We put sequins on the skin of the savanna,

draping the tiger in the heavy velvet of our whims,

call the mastery of a whip a “partnership.”

We teach the king to sit on a painted stool,

trading the vast, golden grass for a spotlight that burns more than it illuminates,

applauding the beast for forgetting how to be a beast.

We marvel at the elephant who dances for a crowd, mistaking his heavy compliance for a shared joy, forgetting that his memory is full of ancient horizons that his feet,

now shackled in glitter,

will never touch again.

This is the pageant of the broken,

where the wild is shrunk into a puppet,

the performance is “love”

because we have finally made the mountain

small enough to fit upon a stage.

The Silent Trade

There is a kindness in the cage,

we tell ourselves.

No hawks here.

No parasites.

No thorns.

Just the steady hum of the air conditioner

the safety of a life that never changes.

We do not see the cost of the quiet.

We do not see the deprivation

in the mind of a bird

that has forgotten the geometry of the wind,

the fins of a fish that swims in a glass box,

forever turning away from a wall it cannot see.

We give them a longer life,

we peel away the purpose.

We grant them security,

we steal the sovereignty of their instincts.

In our desperate need to nurture,

we become the keepers of a beautiful,

well-fed, and unintended Alcatraz.

The sky unbuttons its heavy grey coat,

dropping the hem of winter into a thin mist.

The silence of the frost is broken

by the soft percussion of the first true rain,

not the biting sleet of February,

but a warm, insistent drumming

that tells the roots it is safe to drink.

The Awakening

Deep in the dark,

the chemistry of sleep begins to shift.

In the hollowed oak and the muddy bank,

life remembers its own name:

The Bear stirs, a mountain of fur

shifting in the dark,

testing the air for the scent of thaw.

The Frog blinks away the silt of a cold dream,

climbing toward the silver surface of the pond.

The Seed feels the weight of the water

and decides, at last, to split its skin.

The New Rhythm

The world is no longer a monochrome sketch.

The showers wash away the salt and the grit,

revealing the neon green of moss,

the stubborn heads of crocuses.

It is a messy, wet, and glorious arrival.

The insects hum a their moods in the grass,

and the birds return like boomerangs,

hurling their songs against the retreating chill.

Squirrels hurrying hither and tither

In search of sustenance and survival.

The geese are back in droves

Bringing life to the city.

Winter doesn’t die;

it simply exhales,

in that breath,

earth begins to dance, again.

The Boake gates of ‘59 seem so close today,

MHR we called him.

Through the mist of nearly seventy years,

We were young boys stepping on

to a long, bright road,

Before the titles, the accolades, the work

and the weight of many lives saved

Hung upon your steady shoulders.

Sixty-seven years is a lifetime of “do you remember?”

Of shared laughter that echoed through the college hall,

Bubbling up like a persistent spring in my mind,

Vivid, unbidden, and heartbreakingly sweet.

Our youth entailed a world to be drawn,

Unaware that you would redraw the boundaries

Of what was possible for our island’s healing.

You were the pioneer, the first to bridge the gap,

Using your mind to give the gift of time to thousands.

A giant of ward 58, the “Professor” to the world,

But to me, always the friend from the first form,

who grew into a man of such singular purpose

That even at seventy-eight, the call of the sick

Was the rhythm your soul marched to.

There is a quiet, tragic beauty in the way you left,

A healer on his way to heal,

Your own heart deciding its work was done

While you were still in the service of another’s.

It is the exit of a soldier who never put down the sword,

A physician who never truly stepped away from the table.

We know this direction, MHR.

We know the path narrows for us all,

Eventually, the sun must set on the longest of days.

But knowing the destination doesn’t soften the arrival.

The world feels a little thinner now,

The air a little stiller without your presence,

But the memories, those ‘59 memories,

They keep bubbling up,

Reminding me that while the heart may stop,

The brotherhood we built is timeless.

Rest now, old friend.

The patient is seen,

History is written,

You’ve done your bidding.

And the boy I knew so closely

is finally at Peace.

“From Him do we come,

Unto Him we Return.”

Fifty-two isn’t just a number on a card,

it’s geography we’ve spent a lifetime mapping.

It is the weight of a thousand ordinary Sundays,

the echo of laughter in houses that have grown quiet,

the steady, rhythmic hum of a life

built brick by stubborn brick.

I look at you and I don’t just see today.

I see the girl in the faded photograph,

In my phone gallery,

the woman who held our world together

when the storms rolled in,

the partner who knows the end of my sentences

before I’ve even found the breath to start them.

We are a different kind of beautiful now.

It’s in the way we lean into each other without thinking,

the way “I love you” has evolved

from a frantic heartbeat into a slow, deep breath.

We have outlasted trends and old cars,

weathered the seasons of youth,

the settling of silver,

discovering that the greatest adventure

wasn’t the destination,

but the person in the passenger seat.

Thank you for the grace of your presence,

for the 18,993 mornings

of waking up next to you,

for proving, every single day,

that the best part of my life

has always been us.

Happy 52nd Anniversary.

Mar 31 1974 - Mar 31 2026

In the quiet hush of Scarborough,
where winter paints its pretty white pictures
across rooftops, sidewalks, and silent trees,
the world seems paused,
as though time itself has taken a breath
and forgotten to exhale.

Snow lies like memory,
soft, unbroken, and patient,
covering yesterday’s footsteps,
hiding the stories beneath.

But something begins,
not loudly, not all at once,
but as a whisper beneath the frost.

A drop falls.

Then another.

Icicles, once rigid with certainty,
begin to surrender,
their edges softening
into the language of water.

The wind changes its mind.
It no longer bites,
it lingers.

And somewhere beneath the snow,
where roots have waited in quiet faith,
a stirring begins.

Spring is not born in a single moment,
it is negotiated.

Between thaw and memory,
between sunlight and shadow,
between the last snowflake
and the first brave bud.

In Scarborough,
it arrives gently,
not as a declaration,
but as forgiveness.

The snow recedes,
not in defeat,
but in understanding.

And in its leaving,
it makes room
for green.

For warmth.

For life to remember itself again.

And we, like the earth,
begin to soften too,
turning our faces toward the light,
learning once more
how to begin.

Trees Are Made of Air.

They stand there,

quiet as old thoughts,

rooted in the patience of earth,

yet reaching, always reaching,

into something we cannot hold.

You think they rise from soil,

from mud and memory,

but look again,

they are built from whispers of sky.

Invisible breath,

drifting carbon,

a trace of what we exhale without thinking,

they gather it,

piece by unseen piece,

through the soft alchemy of photosynthesis.

Light becomes structure.

Air becomes form.

Silence becomes wood.

Each trunk is a story of sunlight,

each ring a quiet agreement

between time and atmosphere.

They drink the sky,

not with mouths

but with leaves,

green hands open in surrender.

And slowly,

almost impossibly,

they turn nothing we can touch

into something we can lean against.

So when you rest beneath a tree,

remember,

you are touching the sky,

held still for a moment,

made solid enough

to shade your thoughts.

There was a time,
not written in law,
but carried in breath,
in the pause before judgment,
when intention
sat quietly beside every action,
like a witness no one dared ignore.

A hand that struck
was asked why
before it was condemned.
A word misplaced
was weighed against the heart
that released it.
Even silence
was questioned for its purpose.

Back then,
we believed that beneath every deed
there lived a seed,
of kindness,
of fear,
of longing to be seen,
and we judged the seed,
not just the thorn.

But somewhere along the way,
in the rush of louder voices
and quicker verdicts,
intention grew faint,
like an old language
no one bothered to teach their children.

Now,
actions stand alone,
stripped of their origins,
paraded in fragments,
twisted to fit
the hunger of the moment.

People move
not by the compass of conscience,
but by the shifting winds
of advantage.

Truth bends.
Motives blur.
And the question is no longer
“Was it meant in good faith?”
but
“Does it serve me now?”

A smile becomes strategy.
A promise becomes currency.
Even kindness
wears a mask,
waiting to be exchanged
for something greater.

And intention,
once the quiet judge,
has faded into the background,
like an old portrait
gathering dust
in the hallway of memory.

No one stops to ask
what lived behind the act,
what storm brewed behind the calm,
what love trembled behind the mistake.

We have learned instead
to see only the surface,
to harvest only the visible,
to reward only what profits us.

And so the world moves faster,
but feels emptier.

For when intention dies,
trust follows,
and when trust fades,
we are left
not with justice,
but with transactions.

Still, somewhere,
in the quiet corners of the human heart,
the old measure lingers,
waiting.

Waiting for someone
to ask again,
before casting the stone:

What did they mean?

Hey bibble, bibble,
The cat and the fibble
Weren’t just playing tunes for fun.
They had a new plan,
It was so grand

For a blooming cow on the run.

It all started one night
When Bessie, the cow, had had enough.
She was tired of grazing and chewing the cud
The life of a cow? Way too tough!

Bessie (to the gang):
“I dream of flying high!
I’ll jump the moon, soar the sky!”
The cat, amused, twanged a chord,
While the dog laughed so hard, he roared.

Dog: “Jump the moon? You’re out of your mind!
You’re just a cow! You’re earthbound, confined!”

But Bessie was bold, she had no fear.
She strapped on wings made from a spear.
The dish and the spoon as ground control,
They prepped for launch, it was quite the roll.

Dish: “We’ve calculated the trajectory right,
You’ll slingshot ‘round a satellite!”

Spoon (holding up a ladle): “Just fuel up on grass, and believe in your heart,
And soon you’ll make cow-jumping art!”

The cat played faster, the tension grew,
As Bessie stretched, her courage new.
With one great MOO, she launched with grace,
Shooting through stars in haste.

Over the trees and past a kite,
The cow flew onward into the night!
She dodged a plane, zoomed past a drone,
And in no time, she was moon-bound, alone!

Cat (with a grin): “She’s actually flying, who would’ve guessed?
This moon-jumping cow’s simply the best!”

With one final leap, Bessie touched the moon,
And the stars all cheered ~ they were over the moon!
She danced in the sky with stars in her wake,
Proving cows can dream, no matter what’s at stake.

The dog? Well, he laughed until he cried,
And the dish ran off with the fork ~ so wide-eyed!
But Bessie returned, a legend on Earth,
Her jump now the stuff of cow-dung and mirth.

So hey bibble, bibble,
The cow with a ribble,
Proved dreams can take you far.
Just aim for the moon,
And maybe soon,
You’ll soar like a cow on a star!

In the twilight of Serendib’s once-golden shore,
the lion did not roar with imperial thunder,
it cleared its throat politely
and asked the Parliament
whether the microphone was working.

Somewhere in the distance
the ghost of Edward Gibbon
adjusted his powdered wig and whispered:

“Ah… decline again?
Do carry on.”

Of Caesars and Coconut-Tree Posters

In the Year of Common Confusion 2024,
a new Caesar emerged,
not riding a horse,
but a campaign lorry
with loudspeakers the size of temple drums.

His posters bloomed
taller than coconut trees,
his smile wider than the Mahaweli.

“I bring Pax Serendib!” he proclaimed.

Milk powder in every pot.
Diesel without queues.
Prosperity by Tuesday.

The people nodded solemnly,
holding biriyani packets like sacred relics
and quarter bottles of optimism.

Memory, after all,
is the first casualty
of election season.

Of Treasuries and Paper Chariots

The treasury was opened.

Inside lay three things:

1. A ceremonial calculator.

2. Two IOUs.

3. The gold leaf from a ministerial wedding cake.

Meanwhile the royal chariots,
now called 4WDs,
multiplied like mangoes in monsoon.

Each minister required one,
for reasons of national dignity
and air-conditioned patriotism.

The mighty Central Bank of Sri Lanka
once a temple of coin and arithmetic,
now whispered soothing lullabies
to the visiting priests of the International Monetary Fund.

“Inflation,” it said gently,
“is merely enthusiasm in the marketplace.”

The IMF nodded gravely,
as priests often do
when the offering plate is empty.

Of Dragons and Empty Ports

Dragons from the East arrived
with cranes, blueprints,
and contracts written in dialects
longer than a Test cricket match.

Ports rose magnificently,

silent, majestic,
and visited mostly by seagulls
who paid no docking fees.

A crafty northern neighbor
watched from across the waters
like a landlord checking property values.

“Interesting development,”
he murmured.

Of Parliamentary Philosophy

Meanwhile, Parliament debated
matters of urgent national significance:

Should the Speaker wear a tie on Poya Day?

Would a PhD help him
adjust his ceremonial wig?

Is English necessary in the House
when shouting works perfectly well?

And most crucial of all:

What, precisely,
is the correct pronunciation of
“low and odour”?

Scholars nodded.
Committees were formed.
Tea was served.

“Nasiolanism” was declared victorious.

The “BikKwechun” remained unanswered.

Of TikTok Tribunes

Then came the crowds.

Not with swords,
not with torches,

but with Wi-Fi.

From Galle Face Green
to Jaffna,
from Kandy
to Kurunegala,

they gathered.

“We have no gas!”
“We have no fuel!”
“We have… no clue!”

A young tribune live-streamed history:

“Breaking news:
the people have discovered hunger.”

Inside Parliament,
MPs formed an emergency committee
to investigate
why citizens disliked starvation.

Experts were summoned.

Graphs were drawn.

Lunch was ordered.

Of Exile and Patriotic Fasting

Then one evening—

Caesar vanished.

Not defeated.
Not dethroned.

Merely…
travelling.

His jet lifted gently
from Ratmalana Airport
toward distant Vietnam.

The royal scribes announced:

“He is on sabbatical.”

Meanwhile his loyal lieutenant rose,
declaring with serene confidence:

“I am the only honest fellow here.”

Budget scrolls followed shortly after.

Taxes on weddings.
Taxes on laughter.
Taxes on possibly breathing too enthusiastically.

Austerity was rebranded
as

“patriotic fasting.”

Of Eternal Construction

And yet,

Serendib endured.

The lion flag fluttered
like an elderly uncle
insisting that everything
was perfectly fine.

Ambassadors smiled diplomatically.

Astrologers consulted the planets
and recommended
favorable election dates.

New highways were announced.

New ports.
New airports.
New committees to study old problems.

The people were finally free,

to pay more,
eat less,
and vote again soon.

Epilogue: The Emergency Button

And so the island wobbles onward,

not collapsing,
not quite rising,

but balancing heroically
on borrowed dollars,
borrowed patience,
and borrowed time.

Above the treasury door
a small sign glows quietly:

“In Case of System Failure,
Press the IMF Button.”

And somewhere in the celestial archives,
Edward Gibbon closes his notebook
and sighs with scholarly admiration:

“Remarkable,” he says.

“Even the Romans
never thought of this.” 😄

In the silent library of numbers,

where digits drift like stardust,

five ancient constants gathered.

π twirled in endless circles, its cloak of digits rippling.
“I have no end,” it declared.
“They chase me, trillions of digits, yet never a finish line.
I turn wheels, planets, and even cups of morning coffee!”

φ leaned gracefully, a spiral unfurling.
“Beauty is my law. I govern the growth of sunflowers, pinecones, galaxies.
Humans carve my ratio into cathedrals and canvases.
I am proportion itself, eternal.”

e hummed softly, exponential and alive.
“I make things grow, decay, oscillate.
I am interest, life, the pulse of the universe.
Compound me, and they see me flourish—from pennies to galaxies.”

i flickered, imaginary but essential.
“I am the square root of the negative,
the bridge across the impossible.
Without me, waves cannot move, circuits cannot hum,
and π and e cannot dance in Euler’s identity.”

√2 shuffled quietly, radical and steadfast.
“The first to break the mortal chain of fractions.
I am diagonal, unsettling, infinite.
Pythagoras feared me, yet I revealed
that infinity and irrationality lie in the very bones of triangles.”

A pause. Then π puffed proudly.
“Clearly, I am the star. I govern circles, planets, wheels, pizzas! Who can top that?”

φ twirled calmly.
“Star? I am elegance itself. Without me, no harmony, no cathedrals, no music. Beauty always wins.”

e crackled with energy.
“You talk of circles and beauty, but I make things grow exponentially!
Without me, nothing accelerates, nothing evolves.”

i zipped around theatrically.
“All of you are so… real. Literally. Without me, none of your tricks work.
No Euler’s identity, no AC circuits, no imagining the impossible. I am essential.”

√2 smiled, sharp and quiet.
“I was the first to show humans that not everything is rational.
I shook Pythagoras himself. I am legend, radical, infinite.”

π scoffed.
“Legendary or not, without me, no circle spins!”

φ countered, elegant as ever.
“And without me, humans cannot appreciate your circles, no proportion, no beauty!”

e smirked.
“Without me, they couldn’t even calculate your precious π!”

i arced dramatically.
“And without me, you could not exist properly in equations!”

√2 chuckled.
“Yet I remain the rebel, the proof that not everything is neat.
Humans will marvel at my irrationality forever.”

Then, in unison, they quieted.

Their voices layered in a cosmic harmony:

“We are irrational, infinite, and transcendental.
We pre-exist human thought, yet we shape it.
We are the pulse of mathematics, the rhythm of nature,
the whispers of the universe itself.”

π twirled again, laughing softly.
“They call me irrational. True enough. Yet without me, no wheel turns, no circle spins.”

φ smiled, a spiral of calm.
“Without me, no harmony, no beauty in their structures.”

e stretched, exponential.
“They harness me to stretch time, to grow knowledge, to model the universe.”

i flickered, sparks of imagination.
“Imaginary? Perhaps. But without me, they cannot cross the seas of complex thought.”

√2 glowed quietly.
“I remind them that infinity lies hidden in triangles, in diagonals, in truth itself.”

And together, the council of constants echoed across the cosmic library:

“We are timeless. We are essential.
We are poetry, logic, and chaos intertwined.
We are the tools, the mirrors, and sometimes the magic
that inspires humanity to wonder, create, and discover.”

And far below,

on a small blue planet,

a child drew a circle with a compass,

arranged sunflower seeds in a spiral,

watched a penny grow with interest, traced a wave across a circuit,

marveled at a diagonal in a square.

The constants chuckled, infinite, eternal, and quietly proud:
Humans had glimpsed them,

and through them, traveled the universe.

Today the circle remembers its secret.
A quiet number.
π
slips through the seams of the universe.

begins in a classroom
with chalk dust drifting
like galaxies across a blackboard,
3.14159. . .
and onward,
a river that refuses a shore.

No end,
no pattern to cage it,
no wall strong enough
to halt its wandering.

It lives in the curve of a planet,
in the spin of a wheel on a highway,
in the orbit of moons
that lean toward distant suns.

It hums in coffee cups,
in bicycle rims,
in the silent patience
of a compass drawing a circle
that always returns home.

Mathematicians chase it
as poets chase meaning,
digit after digit
like footsteps in fresh snow,
each step certain
another will follow.

And somewhere,
beyond the billionth decimal,
π keeps whispering:

Continue.

For the universe itself
is written in curves,
and every circle,
every orbit,
every ripple in water,
is a small celebration
of infinity.

So today we honor the endless number:
with chalk,
with wonder,
perhaps even with a slice of pie

because some mysteries
are best understood
not by finishing them,

but by tasting
the beauty
that never ends. Day

Today the circle remembers its secret.
A quiet number.
π
slips through the seams of the universe.

begins in a classroom
with chalk dust drifting
like galaxies across a blackboard,
3.14159. . .
and onward,
a river that refuses a shore.

No end,
no pattern to cage it,
no wall strong enough
to halt its wandering.

It lives in the curve of a planet,
in the spin of a wheel on a highway,
in the orbit of moons
that lean toward distant suns.

It hums in coffee cups,
in bicycle rims,
in the silent patience
of a compass drawing a circle
that always returns home.

Mathematicians chase it
as poets chase meaning,
digit after digit
like footsteps in fresh snow,
each step certain
another will follow.

And somewhere,
beyond the billionth decimal,
π keeps whispering:

Continue.

For the universe itself
is written in curves,
and every circle,
every orbit,
every ripple in water,
is a small celebration
of infinity.

So today we honor the endless number:
with chalk,
with wonder,
perhaps even with a slice of pie

because some mysteries
are best understood
not by finishing them,

but by tasting
the beauty
that never ends.

High in the patient mountains
where snow remembers the sky,
a whisper begins,
a melt,
a trembling thread of silver
finding its voice among stones.

It slips through moss and shadow,
learning the language of gravity,
braiding itself around roots
older than memory.

Downward it travels,
gathering companions,
rivulets, brooks, and wandering creeks
that have heard the same distant calling.

Through the plains it widens,
no longer a whisper
but a conversation of currents.
Farms lean toward its banks,
willows trail their fingers in its passing,
and the river carries
stories of soil, rain, and forgotten glaciers.

Cities rise beside it,
bridges stride across its shoulders,
yet the water remembers
only the pull of the horizon.

Forward it goes,
toward that thunder the earth has rehearsed
for ten thousand years.

And then,

the brink.

A moment of breath
between river and sky.

The waters gather their courage
and leap together
into the roaring cathedral of mist,
the great Niagara,
where gravity sings in white fury.

Down they fall,
shattering into clouds of spray,
rising again as rainbows
that stitch earth to sunlight.

And the journey is not the end.

For below the plunge
the waters steady themselves,
flowing onward into the wide arms
of the ancient lakes,

quiet again,
deep again,
waiting for wind,
waiting for sun,

waiting to rise once more
as vapor
to begin the long remembering
of mountains.