Weeping Winds

Today, the sun had receded at the earliest, I think. Fallen quietly into the trough of mountains, even before the day birds from their tireless soaring have returned to their home in the pines. The mist is thin—floating in lazily from the distance, like plumes of smoke fanned away by someone trying to light an oven somewhere for this early night’s supper. Handful of scattered stars wink and fade behind the drifting smoke, and the moon, slightly thicker than a sickle shaped moon, up somewhere behind me at the back of the house, traces shadows of trees on my dewy courtyard. Fallen night jasmines, soaked in dew, lend their fragrant soul into the rushing winds. 

In the cold blue gleam of winter, I observe that the Maple at the eastern corner of my courtyard had dropped its last clinging leaves to survive the winter and the wind now roves about my house in seclusion. It had lost its sole companion. The lush green canopy that once was home to his breezy wanderings, were now barren. The day long cuddling under the sun, listening to bird songs; her embracing the rain, his shaking her dry; his whistling praises and her lustrous blush--winter had snapped them all. It now sweeps the mountains howling in agony, returning every now and then to the empty branches with memories of their togetherness.

It thumps at my window in anticipation, hoping for someone to push it ajar. Someone equally lonely perhaps, to weep the loves lost this dreading night.  The panes stuttering in their frames, binds me to the autumn in my heart. I remember the fateful winter when she bid her adieu and I was the sullen wind at her window, pleading to be let in, to let go every conflict and connect our fate once again into a united forever. I wish to throw the window open and let the weeping wind gush in. Perhaps awaken my buried wounds with its cold touch once again and spend this night reaching out to a wishful dream, crawling along our respective bridges of false hopes. But something holds me back. The window is now shrouded in mist, the knocking drowned, as I hear a commanding voice in my head and steady myself against the desire to fall back into time. ‘To love is to let go…to love is to accept’

Some Springs never happen and some loves are never returned. It was a reality that needed time to sink in. And stranded on either side of the fogged glass pane, it was for us to bare our wounded hearts to the healing of time and let fortune eventually lead us to the right person, to that evergreen tree, who won’t ever leave our side, no matter how bad the cold gets. 

By - Sobhan Pramanik