The foreign winter sips into the new year.

The African harmattan sleeps but wakes and creeps into the month of the same year.

Grey is the colour I see.

The eve of the new year is the three hundred and more days lived again.

A new checklist is written again.

The old one, indifferent all the same.

 

This eve, I bear new leaves.

Of the same old stock.

My green will remain for the month.

But don’t blame me if I change.

If I do, it’s the season.

Probably ‘coz I was frozen in winter’s brief or I was shivering under harmattan’s breeze.

 

When winter passes and the man blowing the harmattan wind collapses, I may dry out.

Then you see me- the old branch of the same old trunk.

I can’t make a tree on my own, so I’m not alone.

There are many of us, feel free to join.

Be the new sprout.

Soon, you will be bundled with us in count.

 

Grey is what I see.

It’s you and me.

Bearing fruits this coming year’s eve and a few in the new year’s June.

Our green is new but the seasons are the same as the past.

We circle in the same old cycle.

 

Grey is what I see.

We are new this eve and the new month to come, I believe.

And as winter passes and harmattan dances, we won’t be new anymore- so who do we fool?

 

If you ask me, grey is what I see.

Old branches bearing new leaves, soon it becomes the same old tale.

Green leaves or dry leaves; dry leaves or green leaves.

Do we become grey or we already are?

This grey area is real.

Can you deal with it?

 

 

Asford Psalms.