The first colours of Autumn

 

I stop on my walk,

And look above: beneath blue skies

Autumn’s first leaves

Have begun to blush

 

And I hear your voice

From a distant past, asking

Joy at the first leaves of Spring,

Why not the first of Autumn?

 

Hopes of Uttarayan, I had said

But here, in the southern lands

We were headed into darkness

Colder nights, maples flush

 

Picking a red leaf, you had said

The colours of aging autumn

Deserve as much love

As the hues of youthful spring

 

That dark days need to be loved

How else will they know

That somewhere beyond shadows

Lie a land of light

 

(I have often wondered

If the red leaf is still bookmarked

In your Rumi,

Or have you finally finished the book?

 

What would he have espoused?

That colours are for broken shards?

That those who are divine

Know just one – His blinding white?)

 

I cannot agree any more today

Autumn needs more love

Be it in a forgiving heart

Or saltwater flows

 

You may smile to know

If you still talk to leaves today,

That I have finally found warmth

In the cold of winter days

 

Without the sun,

Uttarayan, Dakshinayan: all the same

Yet there is warmth, love

The solace of sympathy

 

No longer without, but within –

And meltwater trickles round the year

From the icicles of spring’s green

And the sleet of autumn’s red…

 

25^th Feb’ 2025

Written on the last week of summer, on seeing the first red leaf of Autumn