The Return Poem by Satyapal Anand

The narrow, stony street was startled, and it spoke:
‘Perhaps it is him.'
The sunlight gently moving up, step by step,
Paused for a moment,
As if it were tired and wanted to get its breath back.
‘Is it really he who is come?'
It asked.

The wind, its strength failing like an old woman's
Spoke in its crone's voice:
‘I can smell his nice familiar smell;
He was always the playful one, it must be him who's
come back.'

The old doors had gone to sleep, their eyes shut tight
‘We see little, but maybe it is him,' they said.

His old marble that he played with as a child,
Under tons of earth for sixty years it has lain,
Just around the corner where the street turned.
But today it suddenly came to life.
‘O come to my aid, please,
Release me from my grave, O please,'
It said.

‘Yes, it is him,' the sunshine said
‘But it is not the child I knew,
Who's lost somewhere in the recesses of time.'

The old doors opened their eyes,
‘We know him; it is the boy
Only he is grown tall like his father,'
They said.

The narrow, stony street spoke now,
‘For all those years that are past,
I have preserved the imprint of your tiny feet on my breast.'
His old marble that lay under tons of earth,
Now screamed,
‘O let me get out!
Please get me out.'

Which was when the old woman wind
That had stopped in its tracks,
Burst out laughing;
‘So, let's see who we've here," she said.
"Your cheeks, your eyes, your hair, your face
Nothing ,but nothing has changed.
But where have you been all these years?
Promise you will keep coming back.
Always."