Thynroit Poem by Ibohal Kshetrimayum

Thynroit



(A village in the Khasi hills)

Sickly pine trees in tiny clusters
On balding hillocks with grey grass
Fighting a harsh battle for survival
Against the bronchial suffocation
Of dust storms stirred up from the ravaged road
That winds up to the village church,
Where an elderly clergyman sleeps
Every Sunday morning amidst fluctuating notes
Of a choir of country girls.
The young pastor preaches gospel truths
In native dialect with some of his sermons,
His mind, however, pondering
Upon the cuisine he'll be savouring later
In homes of the faithful
Who had been blessed with a good harvest
Of potatoes and cabbages.
A middle-aged village drunk
Shouts obscene warnings to a black bull
For molesting his wife's cow grazing nearby.
The village masseur sits in a rickety chair
And waits for city clients with broken limbs.
Screaming urchins in dirty red, blue, and pink gum-boots
Stampede on the dusty path to the crowded watershed
Where their aunts and sisters wash smudged linens.

But when the sun sets behind the emptying hills
After the church doors have been closed
And the good book has been closed for the day,
A calm silence settles down on the village,
And the moon takes the shape of a clipped fingernail
While a dog howls at it in wolffish superstition,
Between echoes of mothers calling their children home,
Thynroit urges me to remember a village
In a faraway land I left behind.

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