The Prism of Parting
written by: Monika Ajay Kaul
Goodbye wears the red of rust,
do you see it?
A crimson sunset dissolving into the sea’s sapphire hunger!
Is it not a faded rose-pink love letter,
creased and worn but never erased?
Whose hands once clasped it so tightly,
as if to mend what could not stay?
It drapes itself in blue,
the inky veil of a sky drained of its stars.
Why does it mourn in cobalt shadows,
even as waves pull away from the shore?
A turquoise retreat like a confession left unsaid?
But Sayonara(s) shimmer with gold too!
The bronze sheen of fallen leaves.
Can you hear their amber crinkle underfoot?
Does their surrender promise the soil,
dark as burnt umber?
A return even as they disintegrate to dust?
Green becomes its longing!
The jade resilience of a sapling bending in the wind.
Does it envy the air’s emerald freedom?
Yet, its olive roots hold fast,
anchored in a world of shifting hues.
Sometimes, adieu is the soft grey of ash,
charcoal remnants of a fire once ablaze.
Have you seen its silver wisp of smoke rise?
A pewter saga reaching for the azure skies
it will never find?
And still, there is the stark white of beginnings!
Do you see how frost, pale as alabaster,
stills and preserves?
How it waits for ink… midnight-black and unyielding!
To mar its pristine surface?
What courage lies in calm interlude,
its chrysalis birthing wings stained in ochre and amethyst?
Goodbye is every colour, every shade!
A prism. Bending with the angles of our gaze.
Its hues bleeding into one another.
Do you not see?
Leaving does not extinguish love,
it refracts it.
A spectrum scattered.
A kaleidoscope of what remains.
NOTE:
Based on the Prompt – The Color of Goodbye
- The Prism of Parting - May 19, 2025
- Wings of Vengeance - April 26, 2025
- The Weight of a Shadow - March 25, 2025
