Letting Go
October comes with its arsenal of affection.
Autumn warbles and rustles, scrawls out
heaps of petunias and chrysanthemums
everywhere like graffiti, and the heat
is tempered well enough for lovers to kiss
and not sweat. Everyday, when I expose my room
to witness the brief poetry of receding glares,
I no longer think of sadness as love, or your absence
as an attic to be filled with dank souvenirs of losses.
My mind is all about practicalities: misplaced socks,
woolens hiding in trunks, and the sweet smell of drycleaners.
Autumn isn’t yearning and nostalgia; it’s preparation for
the season of slow work and solitary sleep. My diaries
are unusually withdrawn from chasing the memory of
faraway ghosts, the hills and streams, too close and yet
out of reach. They prefer archiving the tedious receipts of living.
Of the plain act of letting go, that autumn teaches leaves,
learning of its own fruits and rewards.
©2023 Kaustabh Kashyap.
