Through intimate images, ‘Requiem for a Home in Manipur’, a book of poems, blends private memory and the human cost of conflict — these are silenced stories of a wounded land and a plea for healing.
The Gate
Cast in iron, painted white
it stood tall, spread wide
letting cars and lorries
glide through
like beasts returning
from the wild
Shaped by Mother’s touch
arms open to kin and stranger
it secluded kitchen clatter
from the rev and purr
of engines at dusk
deterred drunks, prowlers
night callers
muffled the knock of the unsure
asking for things
we couldn’t part with
But one night it buckled
under the pounding and the kicking
the air swollen with screams
The world spilled in, unbidden
We ran through the very mouth
that once held back
everything we feared
Now it is in ruins
shut tight
bolted
welded with heavier hinges
If we stood before it now
would it recognise us?
The Garden
Colour hums like a hymn.
Dusk or dawn,
green breathes like a dream.
My mother, patient
as earth, nursed
each leaf as if
it held our name.
My father, guiding roots
with weathered hands, taught
beans to climb,
gourds to swell.
They moved
a quiet duet
through seasons of bloom.
Bougainvillea burst
against old walls,
roses whispered,
lilies bowed.
Each stem remembered.
Palms wet with rain,
my sisters-in-law came
to replant memories,
make space for more.
We didn’t just grow flowers,
we grew something
we could own
leaf by leaf.
Even now, if one leans
past the gate
branches will whisper
we once lived there.
— Hoihnu Hauzel is a journalist and author. Excerpted with permission from Copper Coin