His language
Suddenly, I started speaking his language
in the quietness; I was never again misunderstood.
Poèmes sur le thème : language
Poèmes sur le thème « language » sur Poets.by.
Mother tongue
Silence is my mother tongue.
I fluently speak it, but I never understood a word of it.
Words
the name refers for use
dog chair wall you
demand response
each hears his way
but knows the category general
here's a chair so sit
in talk we seek
to know grasp words
as means
but in the poem
they are also ends like dance
the chosen china
or when in the dusk we put
our chores away and share
some talk a book
the hush
No Uncertain Term
I would like to have a word
with you. It is apricot.
It shall determine our exchange.
Confiding apricot, I will lean in
and murmur. You shall pose
as one who understands.
I will have a moment of your time.
There’s something I’ve been meaning.
To tell you. Apricot, I tell you.
Apricot, I say. Apricot, you realize.
Language
I made new speech for you, a secret tongue,
Dearest and best of all in book or scroll —
To hear it spoken was to hear it sung,
I copied all of it upon my soul.
There were those leafy letters, wreathed like vines,
Such trellises of words as Sappho spoke —
Heavy as silver flagons of old wines
Some Latin phrases carved by stately folk.
I could not find a sound for leavetakings
Slower, more sorrowful than Spanish is.
And the French names with flower-dusty wings
Flew in and out among the sentences.
So with my heart a voice made musical,
I went to you and did not speak at all.
The Plot against the Giant
First Girl
When this yokel comes maundering,
Whetting his hacker,
I shall run before him,
Diffusing the civilest odors
Out of geraniums and unsmelled flowers.
It will check him.
Second Girl
I shall run before him,
Arching cloths besprinkled with colors
As small as fish-eggs.
The threads
Will abash him.
Third Girl
Oh, la ... le pauvre!
I shall run before him,
The Bird at Dawn
What I saw was just one eye
In the dawn as I was going :
A bird can carry all the sky
In that little button glowing.
Never in my life I went
So deep into the firmament.
He was standing on a tree,
All in blossom overflowing ;
And he purposely looked hard at me,
At first, as if to question merrily :
" Where are you going ? "
But next some far more serious thing to say
I could not answer, could not look away.
Oh, that hard, round, and so distracting eye
Little mirror of all sky !-
And then the after-song another tree
The Little Language
When I am near you, I am like a child,
I'm still and simple, I am undefiled.
I speak my love in a forgotten tongue.
And use the words I knew when I was young.
My Love! You have restored me in a hundred ways.
You gave me back my happy childish days.