The nip in the air sharpens your edges
Ensheathing you in swirls of chill
The ninth month originally
November showers spiritual spas
The one plus one of eleven gears you up for another life
A double whammy in life’s high rise buildings
A benediction in after life
Swing to the music of the gale
And let your skirts flow in His Grace
It’s the days of reckoning yourself
Eyes downcast in humility
While the symphony of russet leaves sets off a spring in your stride
It’s Thanksgiving time my friends
To rejoice in His fathomless bounty
Love is in the November breeze
And “Thank you” is on my lips
The Chinar Leaf
The chill was crawling into her world weary bones
Clinging like moss on an ancient stone
Making her wrap her shawl tighter around her buxom form
Each autumn leaf glowed with a burning heart
Setting aflame each pore of her gasping being
Why did she think the dying leaves were blossoming petals ?
Had she completely lost sense of time ?
A Chinar leaf fell near her dainty feet
Perfectly formed and coppery red
It was like the picture of an autumn leaf in a child’s book
The Valley whispered its grey secrets in her ears
Each falling leaf had a story to tell
Today again the newsreader screeched about another dead terrorist
A slip of a boy he was
His beard hardly cropping up on his handsome visage
Some mother had lost a piece of her life
Just like the Chinar was losing its leaves
They looked so pretty on her chiffon sari
These russet leaves of embroidered Chinar
She touched their silken threads as she dressed for the party
The tree across the Dal looked at her image in the waters
She was carrying the corpses of hundreds
Of young leaves on her shimmering hem
Lily Swarn is an internationally acclaimed poet, novelist, and essayist, author of A Drop of Cosmos. She is the 2023-24 International Beat Poet Laureate India and a Peace and Humanity ambassador. She can be reached at sukhish83@gmail.com
