Marsh Languages

Note: This poem relates to the forum given by Bob
Hasman in which we discussed the gender and
anthropocentric structure of our language.

The dark soft languages are being silenced:
Mothertongue Mothertongue Mothetongue
falling one by one back into the moon.

Language of marshes,
language of the roots of rushes tangled
together in the ooze,
marrow cells twinning themselves
inside the warm core of the bone:
pathways of hidden light in the body fade and wink out.

The sibilants and gutturals,
the cave languages, the half-light
forming at the back of the throat,
the mouth’s damp velvet moulding

The lost syllable for ‘I’ that did not mean separate,
all are becoming sounds no longer
heard because no longer spoken,
and everything that could once be said in them has
ceased to exist

The languages of the dying suns
are themselves dying,
but even the word for this has been forgotten.
The mouth against skin, vivid and fading,
Can no longer speak both cherishing and farewell.
It is now only a mouth, only skin.
There is no more longing.

Translation was never possible.
instead there was always only
conquest, the influx
of the language of hard nouns,
the language of metal,
the language of either/or,
the one language that has eaten all others.