On Being Far From Home (by the Khinasi poet Tashairah)

I wake to greyness.
On the grey waters of Tael Firth,
grey sails glide through grey fogs,
half-glimpsed like souls
mid-transit betwixt this world and the next.

I pull the grey furs closer about my shoulders
but the damp grey chill, I fear,
has come to dwell in my bones
like a beggar clad in grey rags
sleeps 'neath the grey thatch of the inn's back wall

And I wonder,
O Ariya,

Your shining streets, inlaid with mosaic
Avani's face and crown and gown, rendered
In chips of turquoise and gold and vermillion
Do they miss the caress of my shoes' soles?

Your purple figs, so plump they bend the boughs
Almost to the emerald orchard's floor
Your graven silver tureens of lemon and rosewater
Do they miss the eager press of my lips?

Were your colours ever so dazzling,
your scents ever so intoxicating?

Or has my heart, sick from your absence,
And stranded in a world of grey,
Merely laid an extra coat of lacquer
Upon your memory?