SEASONAL VERSE

If You Return, Bring the Rain

Some people leave with the sunshine. The ones we never stop loving return with the rain.

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If you return, don't bring apologies.

Bring the rain.

Bring the kind

that gathers quietly

at the edge of the sky,

the kind

that arrives

without asking

whether anyone

is still waiting.

Do not return

with flowers.

The garden

has already learned

how to bloom

without permission.

Do not return

wearing yesterday's smile,

or carrying promises

that time

has already outgrown.

Bring the kind

that darkens rooftops

before anyone notices,

that writes soft circles

across forgotten windows,

that convinces the dust

to loosen its grip

on old photographs.

Bring a rain

that remembers

every street

we once walked

without looking at the time

Bring instead

the slow rain—

the one

that softens old soil,

washes dust

and teaches abandoned paths

the sound

of footsteps again.

There are still places

that remember you.

The wooden bench

beside the river.

The little café

where laughter

always reached the table

before we did.

Even the trees

lean farther

each spring,

as though listening

for a name

the wind

never stopped carrying.

Time

has been quietly working.

It gathered

your absence

into the corners

of every room.

It taught the clocks

to speak louder,

the evenings

to linger longer,

and my heart

to become fluent

in silence.

Still,

some hopes

refuse

to learn

the language

of goodbye.

So if one day

the road

finds its way

back to us,

do not knock.

The rain

already knows

the house.

It will find

the roof,

the porch,

the garden,

and the empty chair

waiting

where the light

always falls first.

Finally

my hands—

washing away

everything

except

the reasons

I loved you.

And perhaps

love

is much the same.

It does not arrive

to begin again.

It comes quietly,

like rain

on thirsty earth,

making everything

it touches

remember

how to bloom.

By morning,

the windows

will wear

small silver echoes.

The garden

will never admit

it almost forgot

the rain.

Neither

will I.

— Âññ

©Âññ,2026. All rights reserved.

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