The room lay still, silent and without light.

Draped night had fallen and was all-enveloping,

and the fearful room cowered from the world.

One dark dawn, a chick of Sunshine edged in

through a chink in the curtains and alighted

bright on a windowsill. It waited patiently

for the room to adjust: to lighten slightly,

to be able to distinguish shapes in the shade.

​

The room sat and waited and watched, suspicious

of what the chick was. At first, it seemed a light tang:

pale, but fresh as a lemon drop that might land

on a child’s tongue. And slowly it coloured,

from pure primrose to a confection of buttercup,

evermore richer, evermore deeper.

                                                Each day,

the chick came back and sat in the corner of the room.

And the room watched, as the chick

couldn’t help but radiate out of itself

warmth as wide as wingspan and trill as long as song.

Clusters of small, fragrant white flowers had fallen

from the sky and smoothed onto the chick’s back,

as it had swooped through the morning to return

before the room awoke.

                                  Days turned into weeks

and the room continued to watch and wait,

still unsure of the small shaft of light that had entered 

the still of the room.

                            Then, gently, timidly,

out of the stirrings of a special dawning day, 

a quivering hand seemed to reach out of a corner,

connect and hold the chick of Sunshine gingerly,

with great care and hesitant hope.

​

The room lightened a shade, pallid fingers

hovering across the faded wallpaper.

Reticence had started to melt and the glow

of a new-found liaison touched softness,

making the feathers slip like sliding butter

and releasing the chick of Sunshine

to the joy of the room’s first flight of fancy.

A flight that soared and heightened

and went beyond and above the ceiling

that had previously trapped the room’s fears.

​

In the rush of released exuberance,

like a child’s spirit afloat a bubble,

the chick of Sunshine was unable to stop

and fluttered evermore upwards.

Forever and beyond the sun and sky

to the winking of stars, the chick disappeared

from view to a garden of released sunflowers,

waving in the warmth of timeless summer.

A chronic loneliness had been lifted,

for in the dimmed room glimmers surfaced,

gently slanting, gently pulsing their balm.

​

The room was no longer dark,

for the chick of Sunshine had left behind rays of light:

feathers, so airy that they danced and drifted,

wafting into the blackest recesses,

floating through locked doors and shuttered windows.

The room was now suddenly showered with white flowers,

adorned and displayed and delightful.

It had been luminously transformed

and wondered at the gift of a special presence.

​

And caught in a new light, the room smiled out

of its clear-viewed windows and now realized:

saw the chick of Sunshine would forever return

each day in a new way and peer through the windows, 

shining its presence and pleasure.

The room remembered how, for the first time,

the chick of Sunshine had perched and preened

and brought light to a world once silent and still.

​

Now, with spark and thrill, the room grasped 

that behind the closed blinds of long day’s end,

the light of the world can be carried

in such small packages that they’re sometimes missed.

And that the next day brings fresh presents.

And how, at first, their delivery may seem

                                               - imperceptible, elemental. 

But once awoken, they can fill a room

with the penetration of a sunbeam.