When the Trees Signed the Sky

They had loved each other for centuries—
Autumn and the Trees,
a marriage written in gold and rust,
sealed by the hush of wind,
blessed by the breath of migrating birds.

But love, too, can bruise beneath its beauty.
The season arrived heavy with unspoken words,
its hands trembling with a cold it could not confess.
The trees stood proud, aching with patience,
their branches spread like arms that waited
too long to be held.

Leaves began to loosen—
not gently, not willingly,
but like unsent apologies
shoved into the hands of the earth.
They spiraled down,
each one a broken promise,
each one the soft tearing of paper vows
that once bound them together.

The ground filled with what they could not say,
a carpet of brittle regrets,
fragile enough to shatter under footsteps,
loud enough to echo the silence
between two souls who once spoke fluently.

Autumn whispered, I cannot stay.
The Trees bent their bodies against the wind,
reaching, reaching—
but only emptiness answered.
And so they stood naked in their grief,
bare ribs of wood exposed
to a sky that would not return their love.

The divorce was final,
signed not with ink but with frost,
and witnessed by the pale sun
that refused to choose sides.
Yet still, each year,
they repeat the ritual—
parting, grieving,
breaking themselves open.

Because even endings,
when performed often enough,
begin to resemble devotion.

- Khushi Kaul