The Abandoned Airport

Nothing lands here anymore
Except swallows and sparrows:
The fields cannot remember
The last airplane that landed
On what was once an airport.

The runways have slowly yielded
Inch by inch, every corner,
To hungry weeds and silent woods;
The tufts of coarse September grass
Have reclaimed most of the land.

The wind blows through the wild grass.
Twittering larks have replaced
The cough of busy engines;
Only wild flowers and prickly weeds
Bear testimony to this change.

In the overgrown sal thickets
An owl proclaims what is obvious:
Nothing really was meant to last.
In the end there’s always change.
And that is fair compensation.

Diptesh Ghosh