An Autumn Watercolor

a poem by Amikar Anand

Look around this darkened expanse, the mirror of consciousness
Every face leers and lingers as dirty hands wash themselves
Oblivious of the blood that still stains
And the smell that hangs like a veil, putrid and pathetic
Morbid thoughts swim in a sea of sarcasm while plumes of smoke billow upwards
From the fields of death where
A man stands alone and paints a pretty picture,
Sings softly to himself and laughs at the diseased winds,
A remnant of a time that burned like the sun and
Left in its wake broken bodies of sand and clay to waste away in the lap of eternity.
An autumn watercolor is what he creates with leafless trees and
Weathered roads with people on them,
Real people who toil on towards a blinding light, ethereal and evanescent.
His brush he clutches harder for he knows his time is near
And commands his quivering fingers to follow the last letters in their curving symmetry.
Then he lies down to look at a crimson sky and tastes a sweet tear,
He sees the blinding light and smiles at his salvation.