When it Came Back

it wasn’t a photograph,
a song,
nor a place,
air...just a feeling,
but it might be because of these,
that everything returned,
alive in its absence,
haunting, yet soft.

maybe it was the light
slanting just so on the wall,
or the way someone laughed
and didn’t know
they struck a chord
that once hummed through my days.

for a moment,
i was there again
barefoot on cold floors,
the hum of an old fan,
Murmurs of erstwhile moments

and then,
like mist from morning skin
it was gone.

just the ache remained,
soft,
uninvited,
familiar.

and i sat there,
with just the feeling of a snapshot
from the dust-lit corridor of time.
its edges sharp,
its colors vivid,
though they are long since faded.
a quiet backwash of moments,
receding gently,
leaving a footprint of what once was!