The Season You Chose

You left the way autumn leaves the trees—
not in anger, not in haste,
but in a quiet surrender
to the gravity of your own season.

I watched you drift from my sky,
a star deciding at last
to follow its own orbit,
beyond the pull of my small constellation.

I wanted to ask the heavens
to tilt the night a little differently,
to turn the slow wheels of the cosmos
so you might pause,
so you might stay.

But even as winter gathered in my chest,
I knew the truth of your leaving:
some stars burn too long
when they are held where they do not belong.

You went where the silence
would not bruise your peace,
where the sky might open
without the weight of my weather.

And though our calendars
no longer share the same spring,
though our futures
circle different suns,

I still look for you
in the quiet migrations of light—
in the patient turning of planets,
in the slow forgiveness of dawn.

Go, then.
Follow the horizon you believed in.

May the stars you were searching for
finally gather around you,
and may the season you chose
be gentle to your soul.

And if sometimes the night grows soft
and the wind remembers my name,
know that somewhere beneath this sky
I am wishing you
exactly the peace
you left to find.

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NOTE:

This is a translation of the very first Portuguese poem I wrote, “A Estação Que Você Escolheu.”