Mother Tongue

‘tämä kieli jota vaalin’i (‘this tongue I am cradling’)
from the womb’s rift valleys,
its broken silence,         words

waterfalling through the brain

⎯tikii, were you the first?
                                                                       how can it matter?
                                                                       the uncurled spine
                                                                       is no longer foetal
                                                                       each tongue is an earth document

                     ‘my reach has no immunity!’

from a march of languages, a birth of soldiers
bang! bang! a ravage of voices
but love songs are breeding in the abdomensiii
and every tongue bathes in every other tongue:

xanki =khoakeiviv, Jiebai Zimeiv, 
Shimávi, mampu-manivii, 
äidinkieliviiiviii

‘in the mouths of my child
fragments of my beginning, my end’

how simple to make a desert out of gain⎯

on the open market, languages as clearfells
the forests dying like consonants:

‘my tongue is a root
the animal snuffling at me is you!’
⎯wanhal yenbena,ix  ‘where are the people?’
believe dust when it embraces you!

the swirling welcome-kiss
which becomes a mourning dance

when the cord is snapped⎯
mother-of-the-evening, stem-mother

phrases of choice haunt our silences
like tendrils clambering for air

amid the sexy cons, the sweet-talking
corporates, the jilting parliaments

⎯for how long can sleep rekindle
us?

                                                       ⎯kalyuyurux
                                                       dream’s glimmer forms
returning, again, again

to a birthing ground
whose voices

                                    shimmer
                                                                like new rain