The autumn maple bleeds its final gold,
Each leaf a trembling flame against the coming cold—
We press our palms to bark grown wrinkled, scarred,
And mourn the beauty that the elements tenderly marred.

We chase the burning sunset beyond the canyon’s rim,
And watch as crimson fades to violet, then grows dim.
Beauty’s never found in what we grasp or name,
But in our quiet witness to the brief, unbound flame.

A child’s face shifts in photos—time’s relentless theft,
Roundness thins to angles—only echoes of childhood left.
We cup the fading memories in trembling hands,
But time’s cold current claims what none understands.

The dying man beholds the narrowing of day,
Each color brims with fire before it slips away.
His breath becomes a currency—a fading epiphany,
He treasures tiny wonders—each moment’s reverie.

What fades was shaped to teach the heart its deeper clarity—
That beauty burns the brighter for its urgent brevity.
All transience grows sacred at the edge of swift decay,
We learn to love most fiercely what time must take away.

So take this ember’s afterglow, dear friend, and hold it tight—
Let quiet wonder guide you as each color yields to night.
In all that time diminishes, let tenderness remain—
And gather what is fleeting, for its loss sustains the flame.

Had there been no winter’s ghostly gaze,
Nor frosted runes across windowpanes,
Would longing kindle through a silver haze,
Or sorrow haunt the heart that still remains?

If frost had never kissed the trembling leaf,
And snow had never claimed the earth’s regret,
We might have thought we’d stolen time from grief,
And found the sun unmoved when night beset.

If spring arrived without her predecessor’s death,
If resurrection bore no sacred cost,
Could hope exist where sorrow held no breath,
Where gain had never learned the language of loss?

What splendor blooms without the barren rite?
The heart forgets the ache that tempers fire;
In warmth’s unyielding, tyrannous delight,
The soul dissolves in blandness, none the wiser.

For seasons are the poets and the thieves
Who steal our warmth to teach us what is real:
The soul that never fractures, never grieves,
Can never know the architecture of how to feel.

For here’s the cruel jest, in nature’s guise:
Without the winter’s wound, no spring would rise—
We’d lose the loss that dignifies the prize,
And stray bewildered through a paradise of lies.