“Stray birds of summer come to my window to sing and fly away. And yellow leaves of autumn, which have no songs, flutter and fall there with a sigh.”Rabindranath Tagore · Păsări răzlețe · 1916 · 1
Joy arrives unannounced and leaves singing; what fades no longer sings, it only sighs.
Tagore sets two seasons side by side as two times of existence. The birds of summer arrive unbidden, sing, and fly off: joy is an unplanned gift that does not stay. Autumn's leaves no longer carry a song, only a sigh in falling: beauty nearing its end becomes silence and regret. The image says something about us: vivid moments come unannounced, and what is lost can be recovered only as melancholy memory.
Why it matters It urges us to receive fleeting joys with attention, because they do not repeat on demand.