IN THE LANGUAGE OF THE PLACE

The words of the People linger

gnashed by teeth

never intended to speak the language of the place;

beveled by throats untrained in its subtleties;

slurred by tongues unused to the dance

of the rare syncopation;

buried in ears half deaf to the songs

of the People,

the words still survive the slaughter

and the enmity.

Misspelled,

the old names yet spill

across the maps

sketched in the aftermath.

The ordinary words

from the People of the before-time

still trickle onto documents

otherwise framed in a foreign speech.

The words of the People linger in the air,

on parchment and stone,

teasing the eyes and ears of the Others

who came to take,

to destroy,

to utterly change the place.

Playing across present and future

the words of the People

stir an unexpected burst of color

in the melody of the spoken thought…

an unspoken history.

#UnitedNationsinternationalmotherlanguage

#valentinesday