Only when the rains assailed the hills
You withdrew ashen headed
Birds soaring
In Sundays the hills merge with shadows
Lengthening across roads
Passers by are quiet, the hills have
A possessed silence
The rains may come any moment
The rains cast a stupor over these hills
And us
The hills however quietly reminisce,
Meditate
We from the town only chant
So that the hills are lulled into sleep
So that their bodies are not lashed
By the wind and the storm
So that they carry with them their
Ancient rites into a long prayer
.
Ananya S Guha
Shillong
INDIA
Picture Nick Victor
.