Languages

THERE are no handles upon a language
Whereby men take hold of it
And mark it with signs for its remembrance.
It is a river, this language,
Once in a thousand years
Breaking a new course
Changing its way to the ocean.
It is mountain effluvia
Moving to valleys
And from nation to nation
Crossing borders and mixing.
Languages die like rivers.
Words wrapped round your tongue today
And broken to shape of thought
Between your teeth and lips speaking
Now and today
Shall be faded hieroglyphics
Ten thousand years from now.
Sing and singing remember
Your song dies and changes
And is not here to-morrow
Any more than the wind
Blowing ten thousand years ago.

(2 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)

Similar poems:

Sand Scribblings THE WIND stops, the wind begins. The wind says stop, begin. A sea shovel scrapes the sand floor. The shovel […]...

Bones Sling me under the sea. Pack me down in the salt and wet. No farmer’s plow shall touch my bones. […]...

Girl in a Cage HERE in a cage the dollars come down. To the click of a tube the dollars tumble. And out of […]...

Goldwing Moth A GOLDWING moth is between the scissors and the ink bottle on the desk. Last night it flew hundreds of […]...

Prairie Waters by Night CHATTER of birds two by two raises a night song joining a litany of running water-sheer waters showing the russet […]...

Helga THE WISHES on this child’s mouth Came like snow on marsh cranberries; The tamarack kept something for her; The wind […]...

Have Me HAVE me in the blue and the sun. Have me on the open sea and the mountains. When I go […]...

Smoke Rose Gold THE DOME of the capitol looks to the Potomac river. Out of haze over the sunset, Out of a smoke […]...

Panels THE WEST window is a panel of marching onions. Five new lilacs nod to the wind and fence boards. The […]...

How Yesterday Looked THE HIGH horses of the sea broke their white riders On the walls that held and counted the hours The […]...

Fire Pages I WILL read ashes for you, if you ask me. I will look in the fire and tell you from […]...

Cumulatives STORMS have beaten on this point of land And ships gone to wreck here And the passers-by remember it With […]...

Kreisler SELL me a violin, mister, of old mysterious wood. Sell me a fiddle that has kissed dark nights on the […]...

Interior IN the cool of the night time The clocks pick off the points And the mainsprings loosen. They will need […]...

Margaret Many birds and the beating of wings Make a flinging reckless hum In the early morning at the rocks Above […]...

They Buy With an Eye to Looks THE FINE cloth of your love might be a fabric of Egypt, Something Sinbad, the sailor, took away from robbers, […]...

Mist Forms THE SHEETS of night mist travel a long valley. I know why you came at sundown in a scarf mist. […]...

The Four Brothers MAKE war songs out of these; Make chants that repeat and weave. Make rhythms up to the ragtime chatter of […]...

Dunes WHAT do we see here in the sand dunes of the white Moon alone with our thoughts, Bill, Alone with […]...

Thin Strips IN a jeweler’s shop I saw a man beating Out thin sheets of gold. I heard a woman Laugh many […]...

Telegram I SAW a telegram handed a two hundred pound man at a desk. And the little scrap of paper charged […]...

Murmurings in a field hospital [They picked him up in the grass where he had lain two Days in the rain with a piece of […]...

The Hangman at Home WHAT does the hangman think about When he goes home at night from work? When he sits down with his […]...

Always the Mob JESUS emptied the devils of one man into forty hogs and the hogs took the edge of a high rock […]...

Snow SNOW took us away from the smoke valleys into white mountains, we saw velvet blue cows eating a vermillion grass […]...

Peach Blossoms WHAT cry of peach blossoms let loose on the air today I heard with my face thrown in the pink-white […]...

They Will Say OF my city the worst that men will ever say is this: You took little children away from the sun […]...

Pick Offs THE TELESCOPE picks off star dust On the clean steel sky and sends it to me. The telephone picks off […]...

Falltime GOLD of a ripe oat straw, gold of a southwest moon, Canada thistle blue and flimmering larkspur blue, Tomatoes shining […]...

In a Back Alley REMEMBRANCE for a great man is this. The newsies are pitching pennies. And on the copper disk is the man’s […]...