Memories of November

My land now far removed
where innocence died,
and you flourished.

Yet the smells remain,
clinging and never forgotten.
Like snakes twirling in toilets,
bent on proving their sterileness
cohabiting a space so dense-

In the Bulbul's twitch,
of Luit and its silence
of dogs and stray cats,
wandering in, like love.
Leaving you and coming back-
strays, forever straying.

Of headiness of April rains,
of the naked austerity of Patkai,
the unknown languages of streams,
of the red earth-

there
I lie scattered.

-© 2014 Maitreyee Bhattacharjee Chowdhury

( Photograph courtesy Bhagyajit Bhuyan)