Language death is rarely a sudden event, but a slow process of
each generation learning less and less of the language until its
use is relegated to the domain of traditional in poetry and song. …………….Wikipedia, “Language Death”
Would I
I wonder
Have been better off
Composing
In some different mother
Tongue
Say among
Tofa
Reindeer herders
Or with South Siberian
Tuvan nomads
Or perhaps
Wayampi grub-
Seekers in Guianan
Mists
Or those isolate
Karaim still holding on
To their nouns
In the Lithuanian village
Of Trakai or the
Ho-Munda
Chirping
Away in India’s
Orissa State
Perhaps
Ifugao rice farmers
Would reckon
Any answer
To be found
In a gnomon’s shadow
Or in the cries
Coming from a mosquito’s
Death throes
Of course as I
Follow
Such speculations
3,000 languages
Are going
Extinct
The elders
Having so few to teach
Time space species number
(The Bosavi word for
“Tomorrow”
Also means “yesterday.”)
Therefore I shall travel
Far indeed
Into the boreal rainforest
Until my hand
No longer counts
To five
While a whirling
Rhapsode
Within a ring of dancers
Chants
To the night sky
These my freighted idioms
Which some linguist
With admirable
Artistry
Seated by his lamp’s
Forged firelight
Will one day
Translate into
A startlingly original poem
The one beginning
Two paths
Diverged
In a yellow rain