The Sun Shone at Dawn

56 | Builders of Babel

As the story goes, we once shared
a language, before our tongues were split
we abandoned our work and went
our own ways, on the other side of a map
other words and people flowed, 7000
languages between us and 10 000
kilometres as the crow flies; 13 000
as I walk down roads that wouldn't
meet, so let us build this bridge
like a cover wrapped around a book
and our hands will close around the last word.

We are building a tower of words, liefste,
words stacked as bricks in stanzas
with the clay from our sides of the map
and the clay that stuck to us on the roads, ma puce,
from 7000 languages and 3000 years, my honey-apple
on the topmost branch, as the poet of Lesbos sang,
and I will teach you the etymology of love, thangam,
and you will teach me how to build higher than the roads were long
and as we climb higher, en kanne, I see you and we grow
closer and not even the Greeks had a word
for the language we learn to share.

High is our tower, foreign the land
we have built it and the clay we mixed
is new to me and you, shelter where the ink
has not yet dried on the pages and we decipher
the shape of our letters, but I will build
you a home, trace your words and your bricks
mould your clay like you shaped words in my voice
and let this tower still in foreign land
be your home with woven words where you rest
your head, uyire, and I will sing to you
in your words.

***

Author's note: this is one of my favourite poems I have written and I wrote it for a person who was then my queerplatonic partner. I played off some details about our lives and relationship and some poetry they wrote for me. A lot of these details might not make sense for a casual reader, but I hope it is still a beautiful poem. I did write a whole analysis of it (1000 words!) and if anyone is interested, I can share it.