The Girl Who Loved Language

When it all became too much
when each sentence she wrote
each word
each syll-a-ble
each l  e  t  t  e  r
began to feel too heavy
as if they were carrying
the weight of a thousand generations
the whispering voices of millions
the girl who loved language
would read poems
in tongues she did not speak.

Und du wartest, erwartest das Eine,
das dein Leben unendlich vermehrt;
das Mächtige, Ungemeine,
das Erwachen der Steine,
Tiefen, dir zugekehrt. (1)

A solas con el diccionario
agito el ramo seco,
palabras, muchachas, semillas,
sonido deguijarros
sobre la tierra negra y blanca,
inanimada. (2)

She would speak the words aloud
an incantation
intended to make language nothing
more than sound
and sensation
the weight and shape of words
becoming the movement of tongue
and lips
and teeth.

In the vacuum created
by this most ancient form of magic
she would begin again
relearning her mother tongue
the familiar sounds
now foreign in her mouth
she would carefully shape words
way-ting
luhv
meh-mor-ee
and in their newly acquired oddity
find meaning.


(1) Taken from "Erinnerung" by Rilke. "And you wait, you wait for that one thing / that will infinitely enlarge your life; / the gigantic, the stupendous, / the awakening of stone, / depths turned round toward you."

(2) Taken from "Solo a Dos Voces" by Octavio Paz. "Alone with the dictionary / I shake the dry branch, / words, girls, seeds, / the rattle of pebbles / on the earth black and white, / without life."