Return Of A Child

A month the room lay empty Of all but cot and toys Like a barren field, unstirred by wind Or the passing of changing clouds It was a cave without an echo, Blank canvas. A useless space, Littered with unused things Cold to the touch And hard as plastic flowers And then a plane touched down Morning brought a taxi to the door And the room, like a shrivelled Phoenix Fattened and flapped its wings A human infant danced again in its midst Swaying, a lissom lotus Smiling up like a butter lamp to a shrine Bringing the room alive with tiny cries