THE SEASONS WE CARRY WITHIN
by GAYATHRI NAIR C
There is a forest hidden within us,
where every feeling grows
like a tree that has forgotten
the day it first touched the sun.
Spring arrives
not merely in the meadows,
but in the trembling courage
of a heart learning to love again.
Every blossom
is a promise whispered by hope,
every birdsong
a reminder that silence
was never meant to last forever.
Then comes summer,
golden and fearless,
stretching its warmth
across the shoulders of dreamers.
Joy ripens
like fruit beneath an endless sky,
while laughter dances
through fields of wild grass,
careless as butterflies
that never ask how long beauty survives.
But no season
is exempt from change.
Autumn enters softly,
painting the world
with the graceful colours of goodbye.
Leaves do not mourn
the branches they leave behind.
They simply trust the wind.
If only hearts
could surrender so gently.
We cling to memories
like trees refusing to release
their final leaves,
forgetting that even loss
is another form of becoming.
Then winter arrives,
quiet as an old prayer.
Snow covers every wound
without asking
who deserved forgiveness.
The rivers slow,
the mountains listen,
and the stars burn brighter
because darkness
has finally made room for them.
Grief resembles winter.
It teaches us
that survival
is sometimes the bravest kind of bloom.
And beneath frozen earth,
roots continue
their invisible conversations.
Hope is rarely loud.
It grows underground,
patient as seeds,
certain that another spring
is already finding its way.
Perhaps that is why
the ocean carries our longing,
the rain remembers our tears,
the wind borrows our sighs,
the mountains guard our courage,
and the flowers keep blooming
long after we have forgotten
how to believe.
We are not separate
from the seasons.
We are their reflection.
The spring of first love,
the summer of fearless dreams,
the autumn of letting go,
the winter of healing
each lives within us,
returning again and again,
until we understand
that the Earth has never merely
surrounded humanity.
It has always been
the oldest heart
beating quietly
inside our own.
Published on the Writory Wall.