Merely Breathing

Since the family left decades ago
when the trains were still running,
we now have a weather of our own.
where we can lick our lips tasting the flavor of youth
and live our own story.

0ur slow apprenticeship begins.
Words surround us in a thicket of sound
until the smell and spread of their soft flesh
and  seasoned syllables envelop us.

We smell the honey of vowels
the pitch and pulse of consonants
and listen to the resonance
of a language that finally belongs to us.

Light extends over fields.
The river of sound leads us to its source
and the wild grasses teach us
to weave wide shrouds of speech.
as we stand like shadows
covered by  the dust of mother tongues.

.As the past embraces the present,
ours the windy words,
ours the morning banquets of whispering grass
breathing deep of love's aroma
as we press our faces into the flowers
and vanish into their petalled hearts.