(a poem for the hills that remember)

There is a silence the world cannot name—

a silence not born of fear,

but of memory,

and men who have seen too much to speak.

 

Between the spears,

hung gently on bamboo walls,

something waits.

Not war.

Not peace.

Something older.

 

The boy in Mon sharpens wood not for battle,

but because his father did.

And his father’s father.

And the hill behind their home

still echoes with feet that no longer walk it.

 

A hornbill calls in the distance—

not a song,

but a warning

folded in feathers.

 

Here, in the bend of the river

and the hush of millet fields,

grief wears no face.

It is a basket on the back,

a tear in a mother’s shawl,

the way she does not ask

where her son has gone

because she already knows.

 

The old warriors no longer speak of the old ways.

They sit in shadow,

eyes clouded,

but sharp as ever.

They watch the young dance

not for blood,

but for festivals now—

though their feet remember otherwise.

 

And the log drum—

once the heartbeat of the village—

beats now only for tourists,

and even then,

only softly,

like it’s ashamed of who’s listening.

 

There is pride here, yes.

But beneath it,

a quiet ache.

Of names erased.

Of languages folded into silence.

Of stories that die

because no one dares to tell them wrong.

 

The spears remain.

Not lifted,

not thrown—

just standing.

Watching.

Guarding that silence

like the last prayer we still remember how to whisper.

 

Because between the spears

there is not emptiness—

but everything

Nagaland never said out loud.