Thank you to all of our contributing writers and artists!
Check out the wonderful Fall-related writing and artwork in the gallery, both featured below.
Please feel free to submit any writing or art work at any time to oko@aswarsaw.org
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Fall
Arnaz
The branches are growing bare and the leaves dry and golden.
Fall as a season hasn’t always been my favourite. Rather, the first few days of March have always been the happiest for me. Spring hasn’t yet bloomed and echoed throughout every corner and crevice of nature, but the sense of something brewing inside the snow - a quiet melting within it - is ever present. The wind in those last few moments of winter stirred within me something wild and free - as if each frosty breeze and snowflake was only beckoning on something greater, greener, and led us to the belief that we only had to endure a few more days of cold before spring thundered into all the land, and each flower and tree would blossom in their hundreds.
It came quietly: one night, the snow fell for the last time, and a certain warmth settled into the air and began its slow thaw on the ice at the lake. That morning, the world woke up and the sun felt warm and golden again. In the birdsong was found a tune of triumph, and every small kingfisher and bluebird sang for having lived and flown despite the icy winds and bare trees. Then the soil, buried and drowned under heaps of white snow, opened its eyes and rose its head, and within days the earth once more was green, and the wind, once thin and desolate as a violin song, now whispered between the flowers and blades of grass, delicate as swans gliding across a lake.
I woke up in springtime. Along with the flowers, I was ripped and broken into living, and it ached immensely at first and made my skin crawl. I felt thousands of caterpillars on my hands like bees against delicate flower petals, I felt snails on my ankles and saw worms inching near me after rainfall. But then, I felt awake, and so I felt splendid. I felt the cracks of dry soil were the cracks in my heart, and out of them flowed dandelions and I felt, with great certainty, that I existed.
Then summer broke loose in its exuberant intensity and the sun smiled upon the earth for as long as it could, while moonlight graced the grass for just a few solemn hours. But then again, that slow waning began, and the warmth fell.
Now I will walk, and you can come with me.
September and its bitter wind has howled in its gusts all month, and with it swept away the last drops of sun. The orange blaze of the daylight has left the sky and seeped into the leaves - autumn sings in the sounds of leaves crunching under shoes. In warmer days, every inch of land felt awake and hopeful, crawling and dancing under the blaring heat. Now, the earth too has understood the tremendous shift fallen upon it, and mountains are drowned under fallen moonlight and mist. The morning light is not as delightfully hazy and aglow as it once was, but now quivers gently, as if oppressed into its rays and held captive between the thieving clouds.
I walk, now, across bridges over streams and forests murky with haze. It is raining, and each drop sinks into my skin - the skies are heavy with thunder and brimming with lightning and fire, and as I walk I search for the delicacy and splendidness of warmth, instead of mud and yellowing leaves and bleak skies.
Just as I am about to turn back and head to the cosy indoors, away from such a mess of nature, the clouds part for just one moment to let in a clear stream of sunlight. It strikes the rain on the wooden floor of the bridge, the drops thudding against the stream’s surface and glistening on each grass blade to create a glistening shaft of light, glowing and delirious. Then, of course, the sun is again shrouded in darkness and thunder echoes and booms in the distance.
Near sunset, the rain stops. I think of how very beautiful it is, how silent and slumbering the world is in the foggy depths of fall, when only the ducks are awake and softly floating on still ponds, resting in the comfort of the orange, brief interlude.
I am with the leaves and branches that shiver and crack and ready themselves for the ice to come. We long for the light and do not receive it, but fall to the ground and are swept away by the wind until settling into some pond, some park or meadow. We wither in the cold, are torn into blossoming, and wither under sun, granted one season’s refuge with clouds and chilly wind and mist.
The passions of life exhaust me. But now I brace myself for the cold, I shut my eyes. When I am awake again, perhaps things will be different. Perhaps things will waver between summer and autumn, fall and winter, as life wavers in the beaming rays of sunlight through cracks in heavy clouds. And such sun will strike the autumnal rain as it pours onto the leaves, as if to say I am here too.
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Butterflies
Yasmin
Love is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as “an intense feeling of deep affection.” Science defines it as a high level of hormones. I define it as you.
The first time I learnt about love, I was a toddler. My mom told me that it was a strong emotion that you feel when you’re with someone that is special to you. Your heart starts beating faster and you get these butterflies in your stomach. I had to find out the hard way that it’s figurative language and you don’t actually have to ingest bugs.
It took some time for me to understand that the whole fluttering heart thing isn’t the only type of love. Psychological analysis says that there are many types of love, some platonic, some romantic, some sweet, some bitter. Maybe I haven’t truly experienced anything further than puppy love and my mother’s embrace, maybe it will always be that way, or maybe someday I can feel it all. But for now, I’d like to stick to the butterflies.
The first time I felt these so-called flying insects inside of me was during my first day in second grade, or maybe even first, I can’t quite recall. There was a boy that held my hand and told me he liked my hair. At that moment I knew he was my prince charming.
As I grew older I realized that this feeling in your stomach fades at some point. Prince charming is a fantasy I created in my head. Perhaps as time goes by I learn more about these butterflies. Sometimes the butterflies are girls, sometimes they're boys. Sometimes they’re constant, sometimes they’re almost unnoticeable. Sometimes they stay throughout many seasons, sometimes they flutter away.
Butterflies are at their peak of activity during summer, the cold slowly makes it more difficult for them. Fall draws nearer and it’s the beginning of a new school year. They should be gone by now, shouldn’t they? But as the leaves go from green to orange to red, my cheeks go from pale to peach to pink. All I can think about are these flying creatures in me.
Love is oxytocin in my head, it’s the falling of leaves off a tree, it’s a sweet embrace, a peaceful death. Love is coffee in autumn weather. Love is butterflies.
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