White.
The color of a new beginning,
Of a blank start.
The cold, wintry color of January
As it waits all year to arrive,
Then has only one short moment
Before it slowly fades away.
The color of cold winter frost,
Glimmering like the star it will never be.
Of the fleeting joy of a single cloud,
Before it gets chased from the sky.
But it returns again,
And with it comes an army of mist.
And a silver lining.
And hope.
The hope of a thousand doves,
Flying far away from reality,
Far away from where things cannot be,
And to a place where things can.
To a blank page,
To a story yet to be written,
To a land of silver swans and dying angels,
To a land that never existed and never will exist,
Full of mist and clouds and opportunities
Just waiting for a chance to present themselves.
They fly to a land of ideas yet to be thought
And risks yet to be taken.
To a land of wars yet to be fought,
Peace yet to be made,
And of feelings yet to be felt.
Of buildings yet to be built,
Decisions yet to be made,
And lives yet to be lived.
To a place of what could be,
Unbothered by what once was,
Or what has been.
To a place of wishes and dreams coming true,
Of hope and secrets and strength.
Magical and beautiful, but still empty.
To a place of sympathy and sorrow and overwhelming silence,
Just waiting to be discovered
Like a gift never to be opened,
Or a book never to be read.
Like a letter delivered in the dead of night,
Basking in the rays of the silver moon,
Until a single snowflake drops from the sky,
Then another, and another, till the ground is covered
With icy shards of snow burying the message.
The footprints of a startled squirrel
Mark the spot like a gravestone.
A crow caws mournfully,
But even that is soon muffled by a blanket of ice,
Hiding any trace that this ever happened,
That someone out there is sitting in their living room,
Waiting for someone to write a reply
That was never written,
And might still be waiting for ten years,
Or one hundred, or one thousand,
Until they realize that it will never come.
— Ashni Krishna Singh, 11
