a brook flows past my pillow
when lights are out  

curtain falls on the play of stars
when tinders burn out of bonfires
and pale smiles retreat to reality's house...

my eyes retire
confined to a neverland again
fingers feel the thin bark
of an orange tree
and citrus sweetness fills the air
walking in someone's lost garden
on a red cliff
the petrichor from tired grass
soaked in night dew
gets narrated through
her unfinished poem
resting under a violet pebble
and a clueless white lily

on the chariot of sunrays
piercing azure skies
i walk barefoot on yellow leaves
fallen dead so gracefully
in lap of autumn
hiding any remnants of spring
left by the brook
that flows past my pillow

when lights are out and moon sleeps
but sun shines in all its glory
behind my closed eyes
i see her in them
with breeze dancing through her hair
stray dandelion seeds circling her feet
standing far
moving farther still
against a surreal backdrop of wilderness

shall i stretch out my hand
step closer to her fading image
or retreat
to promise of a new spring
warmth which they say waits for me
at the other side of fall

only if pictures came to life
and life were scribbled ink
i'd live the moments
not with eyes shut
but in vivid audacity of my paintings
i'd live us
everlastingly
not just when lights are out
by brook that flows past my pillow