A Swansong – Adya Chauhan

Autumn has arrived,

with auburn leaves and perpetual rain,

sad eyes,

sombre skies.

I wonder where you are.

Ever since I’d been freed from the burden of a heavy heart,

the promise of the melancholic seasons,

my dearly favoured,

had been sincerely awaited.

April girl,

this is the last time I’ll write to you.

I tried to speak to you

but the sky was empty,

so, allow me to convey in words how the months passed me.

The start of summer was when I last wrote of you,

my mourning turned words.

During the prolonged season,

grief had blanketed me,

the heat agitated me—

then suddenly, summer left.

I smiled upon summer’s wreckage

and waved goodbye to its ghost.

Monsoon crept in July, and I found peace.

Spring had long gone,

so had summer,

which lingered too long for my liking.

Around me was scenery most barren and exposed.

It’s late August and I feel nostalgic.

The wind blows eager like me,

sentimental and sorrowful like me.

From sunburnt skies, the rain both falls and ceases all too abruptly.

Rain, more than often truly unseen,

always kept me content.

The sun will soon take a step back;

Dusk will fall,

I will breathe,

and September will be welcomed.

As the birds return to their home for winter,

I find myself going further from mine.

My first home— the art of writing,

abandoned again,

hidden from sight.

My first home, the place where I needed to escape from the most

only to go back to when desperate.

Me with my poetic tendencies

causing frostbite of the mind.

The rain has healed the parched crops of summer’s harshness.

I too have healed, almost.

And although I no longer live in agony,

I still hate the April rain.

Staring my immaturity in the eye, I ask myself

whether I am a terrible person.

Only, I thought this is what it means to be human.

But now

as the seasons go by, I feel pleasant again.

Laughter echoes around me

and as sunlight drips on everything I’ve most loved

it turns even flecks of dust into hope.

Will it drizzle on my poetry and make it entrancing?

Unarguably, words are all I own.

I scorn at my ability to write

even though it’s who I am.

Even though it’s all I have.

I buried my hatred for it just to write to you.

Do you see now?

At last, you are immortal

as my words have made you be.

At last, I let you be,

as I am unafraid of the risk of you fading.

This is the end, my April girl.

I cannot write to you anymore.

I will always love you,

but the trees without you will still bear flowers.

– Adya Chauhan, Amity International School, Noida