By the hills where silence wove its hymn,
A cruel blaze devoured the dim.
In winter’s grip, where frost takes hold,
Dreams were burnt, and hearts turned cold.
The fire roared, its tongue unkind,
A beast that left no hope behind.
Houses crumbled, stone to dust,
Memories lost to fiery gust.
The aged, their eyes, a well of grief,
Saw lifetimes stolen by the thief.
Their toil, their treasure, ashes grey,
A lifetime’s work blown far away.
The young now bear a weight profound,
Dreams deferred, feet on scorched ground.
The city's call, once loud and near,
Now drowned by duty’s heavy fear.
Mothers sift through blackened heaps,
Where sorrow sows, and silence weeps.
A pot, a pan, a shattered jar,
Echoes of life now charred and marred.
Children wander, hearts undone,
Their schoolbooks charred beneath the sun.
The youth’s new coat, a town’s delight,
Now lost to embers of the night.
Smoking stones and smoldering beams,
Buried hopes, shattered dreams.
No pail of water, no desperate plea,
Could quell the wrath that claimed the free.
Yet amidst the ash, a whisper grows,
A seed of hope where ruin shows.
Hands will toil, and walls will rise,
Beneath the canopy of azure skies.
For though the fire has laid them bare,
Their spirit burns beyond despair.
The hill, the home, will sing once more,
Of dreams rebuilt from sorrow’s shore.
Saurabh Chauhan is a poet and freelance journalist from Shimla.
