The Absent Echo of an Autumn Day

The light this morning is a shade too thin.

It pours across the floor where I have been.

A cold front cleared the air; the world looks new.

Washed clean of mist and shaded by the blue.

The street below is scattered, brown and wet,

With leaves that only yesterday we met.

A coat hangs on the chair, a book lies open wide,

But only stillness sits now deep inside.

"And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over.” H.M.

A mug is cooling on the kitchen sill.

The house remains obediently still.

No heavy footsteps break the quiet spell.

Just a memory of laughter in the well.

The season shifts, a gentle, slow retreat,

The scent of woodsmoke, bittersweet.

A phantom warmth hangs where a hand once rested.

A space now hollow, patiently attested.

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” H.M.

The absence settles, soft as falling snow,

A private silence where the colors glow.

The world begins its business, keen and vast,

And leaves the echo of what could not last.