A child struggling with language.

A child struggling with language. The room without a door does not sing Does not hear the birds at dawn, Does not wait for the evening's blue dusk, Reiterates the incomprehensible Like a dream with no way out, the child Pays little mind, plays with the far Away sounds of remembered conversations Rolling the smooth shapes of words over In her palm like bright pebbles, repeating Half rhymes again and again as if The incantation might entice the room to Speak its secrets, opening the wall Like a deep lake of mysterious syllables That threatens no return. C. Waite Phelan is Professor and Chair of the Department ofCommunication at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York.