House of my childhood

The house of my childhood stood empty
On a gray hill
All its furniture gone
Except my grandmother's grindstone
And the brass figurines of her gods.

After the death of all birds
Bird-cries still fill the mind
After the city's erasure
A blur still peoples the air
In the colourless crack that comes before morning
In a place where nobody can sing
Words distribute their silence
Among intricately clustered glyphs

My grandmother's voice shivers on a bare branch
I toddle around the empty house,
Spring and summer are both gone
Leaving an elderly infant
To explore the rooms of age.

"The House of my Childhood" - Dilip Chitre