Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Mother Tongue

“In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.” 
― Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad

“Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire.” 
― Roland Barthes

“An unalterable and unquestioned law of the musical world required that the German text of French operas sung by Swedish artists should be translated into Italian for the clearer understanding of English-speaking audiences.” 
― Edith Wharton

International Mother Language Day Poster By UNESCO.  

“In the Arab world, gratitude is a language unto itself. “May Allah bless the hands that give me this gift”; “Beauty is in the eyes that find me pretty”; “May Allah never deny your prayer”; and so on, an infinite string of prayerful appreciation. Coming from such a culture, I have always found a mere “thank you” an insufficient expression that makes my voice sound miserly and ungrateful” (169).
― Susan Abulhawa, Mornings in Jenin

Midweek Motif ~ Mother Tongue

I missed the International Mother Language Day on 21 February.  Did you?  Better late than never!  

From Wikipedia: 

"International Mother Language Day . . .  is an observance held annually worldwide to promote awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism."

Your Challenge:  

Compose a poem on any subject/event which includes an experience of more than one language.  Make us experience it too.

Little girl at Shreeshitalacom Lower Secondary School in Kaski, Nepal
leads class in pronunciation of alphabet. Photo: World Bank

Eagle Poem BY JOY HARJO 

To pray you open your whole self

To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon

To one whole voice that is you.

And know there is more

That you can’t see, can’t hear;

Can’t know except in moments

Steadily growing, and in languages

That aren’t always sound but other

Circles of motion.

Like eagle that Sunday morning

Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky

In wind, swept our hearts clean

With sacred wings. . . . . 

(Read the rest HERE at The Poetry Foundation.)

Bilingual Blues

by Perez Firmat

Soy un ajiaco de contradicciones.
I have mixed feelings about everything.
Name your tema, I'll hedge;
name your cerca, I'll straddle it
like a cubano.

I have mixed feelings about everything.

. . . .

(Read the Rest HERE at NPR, Morning Edition,  10/17/2011)

~

For those who are new to Poets United:  

• Share only original and new work written for this challenge. 
• Post your Mother Tongue poem on your site, and then link it here.
• If you use a picture include its link.  
• Please leave a comment here. 
• Visit and comment on our poems.
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(Our next Midweek Motif is "A Woman's Day")

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