Night Song

It’s quiet now, the hills

In a  sleepy trance 

Celebrate the rains

As darkness thickens;

Over a hill town drowsy 

With the rains early this 

Year

Climate change they say

In a chorus, even as the soul

Goes into a stupor,

Conniving with these hills

To wet drying lamps

In a garden which welcomes

The rains as a nocturnal visitor

A guest in this town where the

Rains thrash against the windows

And the hills mournful stamp their 

Signature on a hill town which 

Never ceases to be one

Why will you be a victim

Of climate change? 

You are Shillong in whose 

Murky evenings 

Thunderous rains clap

Into a perennial night song

And These Hills

The infinite zero

The identity of the wind

Swirling like a heavenly body

I cut the wound bleeding from

Past, a lifetime song

Of resusication

The macabre irony of a full proof

Life, is the resistance to it

Come question me sitting

Like a cursed zombie

All in me, mine alone

The wind is now silent

And I drown it in inner seas

Of past, present

A ghostly walk in catacombs

Of a mysterious self

Come love me like 

A quiet rustle of leaves

The wind, the rains, the placid 

Hills

Are mine, mine only.

Step lightly on these hills

Be careful, there are ruptures

Beneath, be careful to love them 

But if you do, make the way 

For them to love you

Otherwise you may lose the road

To eternity.

And these hills.

Ananya S Guha lives in Shillong. He has been writing and publishing his poetry for the last forty years.