Autumn's Migration Poem by Mystic Qalandar

Autumn came down
upon this land
with a dryness so fierce
the fruits of my dreams
ripened at once.
Then it lifted me
through time's boiling bath,
carried me over,
and set me down
on the shore of waking.

Now my hands are heavy
with baskets of fruit and blossom.
I walk slowly
over chinar leaves
red as molten gold.
They remind me
of the birds of Kashmir,
who fold their wings
when autumn comes
and, before the snow,
prepare in silence
for warmer lands.

Perhaps autumn is itself
a migration:
of colour,
of light,
of dreams that, once ripe,
taste their destination.

O God, You know
I have tried
not to fall from
the station of knowing You,
and not—having descended
from heaven into this house of matter—
to call it home.

Here hangs a great wardrobe
of garments cut
to the measure of earthly seasons,
waiting for bodies
to be clothed in love.
Not one of them
can fly.

I do not want to live like this.
I want to cut these seasonal robes,
tear them open,
and drape upon my soul
the eternal nakedness
born only of remembering Your Name
without pause.

And just as I think
I have received it—
the robe of Your Name,
woven from the music
that has echoed since
before the beginning—
I hear that Name
not repeated,
but unceasing,
spoken by Your own tongue,
wordless,
soundless.

That garment never ages,
never frays.
New notes keep breaking from it,
and it keeps sounding.

Ah,
how light and song shimmer
on the red and golden waves
of my dream.
Like the bird of Kashmir,
I sing in winter too,
songs of life without end.

I know,
yes, I know:
behind autumn's red fire
hides a cool secret,
gold and newly born.

—MyKoul