Kofi Awoonor.  Had Death Not Had Me in Tears.

Kofi Awoonor. Had Death Not Had Me in Tears.

Author: The Ceylon Press September 27, 2025 Duration: 2:46

 
Had death not had me in tears 
I would have seen the barges 
on life's stream sail. 
I would have heard sorrow songs 
in groves where the road was lost 
long 
where men foot prints mix with other men foot prints 
By the road I wait 
"death is better, death is better" 
came the song 
I am by the roadside
looking for the road
death is better, death is much better
Had death not had me in tears
I would have seen the barges
I would have found the road
and heard the sorrow songs.
The land wreathes in rhythm
with your soul, caressed by history
and cruel geography
landscape ineffable yet screaming
eloquent resonant like the drums
of after harvests.
We pile rocks on terracing love
Carry the pithy cloth
to cover the hearths of our mother.

Come now, you lucky ones
come to the festival of corn and lamb
to the finest feast of this land
come, now,
your lovers have unfurled
their cloths
their thighs glistening like golden knives
ready for the plunging,
for the plentiful loving time.
To whom shall I turn
to what shall I tell my woes ?
My kinsmen, the desert tree
denied us sustenance
long before the drought.
To whom shall I turn
to whom shall I tell my woes?
Some say tell the mother goat
she too is my kinswoman
elemental sister of your clan
But I cannot tell the mother goat
for she is not here.


ENJOY MORE
The Ceylon Press publishes a range of podcasts including The History Of Sri Lanka; the off-grid Jungle Diaries podcast; Island Stories, the podcast that explores what makes Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan; the Wild Isle Podcast: Stories from Sri Lanka’s Nature; a range of complete Audio Books about Sri Lanka; as well as Poetry from The Jungle.  All these, along with eBooks, dictionaries, guides and companions can be found at www.theceylonpress.com, based at The Flame Tree Estate & Hotel in the jungle northwest of Kandy: www.flametreeestate.com.  

The copyright of this podcast recording is David Swarbrick @The Ceylon Press 2025. 

POETRY FROM THE JUNGLE GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGES THE COPYRIGHT CREDIT: 
"Had Death Not Had Me In Tears" from The Promise of Hope: New and Selected Poems, 1964-2013. Copyright © 2014 by Kofi Awoonor.


There’s a particular sound to the jungle-a layered quiet of leaves, birds, and distant water. It’s from within that atmosphere that The Sri Lanka Podcast: Poetry From The Jungle finds its voice. Produced by The Ceylon Press, each episode is recorded at the Flame Tree Estate & Hotel, nestled in the wilds northwest of Kandy. This isn’t a standard literary analysis show; it’s an experience of resonance. Here, timeless poems by renowned authors are read aloud, allowing their rhythms and meanings to intertwine with the ambient sounds of a Sri Lankan forest. The setting does more than provide backdrop-it actively shapes how you hear each word, offering a fresh and quietly profound perspective on verses you thought you knew. This podcast invites a slower kind of listening, where a classic sonnet might be punctuated by a monsoon shower or the call of a hornbill. It’s for anyone who believes place matters, that the environment where a story is told becomes part of the story itself. Tune in for a unique fusion of the literary and the natural, a deliberate retreat into the world of spoken art framed by one of the planet’s most vibrant soundscapes.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 89

The Sri Lanka Podcast: Poetry From The Jungle
Podcast Episodes
John Keats.  To Autumn. [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:57
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees…
Jayanta Mahapatra.  Of That Love. [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:30
Of that love, of that mile walked together in the rain, only a weariness remains. I am that stranger now my mirror holds to me; the moment's silence hardly moves across the glass. I pity myself in another's guise.And no…
John Donne.  Song: Go And Catch A Falling Star. [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:05
Go and catch a falling star, Get with child a mandrake root, Tell me where all past years are, Or who cleft the devil's foot, Teach me to hear mermaids singing, Or to keep off envy's stinging, And find What wind Serves t…
Homer.  Troy Has Perished.  From The Iliad. [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:27
Troy has perished, the great city.Only the red flame now lives there.The dust is rising, spreading out like a great wing of smoke and all is hidden.We now are gone, one here, one there.And Troy is gone forever.Farewell,…
Hafiz.  VII. [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:51
Again the garden has got the glitter of Spring: The nightingale hears good news, for the rose is come. Soft wind returning to the young plants of the meadow, Greet for us the rose, the cypress and the sweet basil. They a…
Ho Nansorhon.  Spring. [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:11
In the courtyard a shower of peach petals piles deep; Wandering orioles cry out on a magnolia tree near the fence. Through tasseled silk curtains the spring cold seeps in; From the censer a list of burning incense gently…
Henry Lawson.  On The Night Train. [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 8:03
Have you seen the Bush by moonlight, from the train, go running by, Here a patch of glassy water, there a glimpse of mystic sky? Have you heard the still small voice calling, yet so warm, and yet so cold: “I’m the Mother…
Gerard Manley Hopkins.  The Windhover. [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:59
I caught this morning morning's minion, king- dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wim…
John Betjeman.  Song Of A Nightclub Proprietress. [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:15
I walked into the nightclub in the morning, there was Kummel on the handle of the door, the ashtrays were unemptied, The cleaning unattempted, And a squashed tomato sandwich on the floor. I pulled aside the thick magenta…
Gwendolyn Brooks.  We Real Cool. [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:06
The Pool Players. Seven at the Golden Shovel. We real cool. We Left school. We Lurk late. We Strike straight. We Sing sin. We Thin gin. We Jazz June. We Die soon.ENJOY MORE The Ceylon Press publishes a range of podcasts…