Crime in a Sri Lankan Church

The people of Sri Lanka are likeable and kind,
Humble, energetic and with an open mind,
They have a love of Nature, and of it take good care
So, Pearl of the Indian Ocean, its beauty is most rare.
Long before the West arrived, common people read and wrote,
So even centuries ago their culture was of note.
These people were hard-working and from war they were remote;
To animals most gentle, few ever ate their meat
While the human person with politeness they did treat.
Sri Lanka has its monks and mystics who form a culture deep,
With precious human values, old ideals they proudly keep.
The people eat their daily bread, demanding little more,
For they are modest people who are humble to the core.
Sri Lanka is an island where it always seems
The sun is ever shining in a garden of our dreams.
The Buddhists there outnumber all the other sects
But there are others too whose faiths Buddhism respects.
There are Hindu Tamils and there are Christians too;
The Muslims, they’re from Hagar, who was Sarah’s maid,
They’re a race inured to violence which readily betrayed.
Now in the springtime season there came the Easter Feast,
With a message for mankind in both West and East.
Nature and mankind in harmony appeared
The sun glowed in an azure sky, the crowd was greatly cheered.
But Satan, he had other pans, for joy he cannot bear.
Joy is something sent by God, giving strength to us down here.
Satan sent perverted men who were on terror bent,
Bring mourning to a joyous feast, this was their foul intent.
They plundered three fine churches but these did not suffice,
They went too fine hotels with five stars in their device.
And now when we look down we behold a ghastly flood,
We see to our great horror there are quantities of blood.
As we look around us we see about the street
Scattered hideous corpses without heads or hands or feet.
Everywhere there is debris, littering the ground,
On all sides there is destruction, the signs of it abound.
Islamists shed blood here as to the East they reach,
Blindly they have followed what their maddened leaders teach.
Now the West is waking up to the danger that they pose;
So, now spreading to the East, they blight this island like a rose.

Joseph Matar – English inspired by the original French