The Painter of Autumn

Gursimran Randhawa

The autumn has greeted me like an impressionist painting,

Like a kiss of departure on a summer Riviera shore,

Lyrics like the trace of the wheels on the stone road:

With every step forward, a more permanent goodbye.

The red and orange that taints the tips of the tallest trees

Melts into the frosting sky,

Seeping downward like fresh raindrops

Painting a final warmth

Before it is then denied:

Strokes of colours dancing in the wind,

And with a pirouette, they fall into the eye.

Autumn sunshine clings to the skin

Like honey

As leaves fly by.

The procession of winter proceeds

With earth still left to grieve,

So the flowers still lay

In the dull eternity

Of fall disarray.