The Birth of Language

The Birth of Language
jp melville

There are languages without words

living inside each of us.

They have some names

like hope, dream, wish, desire.

Though if the words were born one day

we would not recognize them

because words we do not speak

are languages we do not know.

If we hear them, we fear them

and we are likely to take up arms against them

burning the prophets who sound so strange

hacking down those others we call savages or barbarians.

Still, funny that for all our efforts against

the voices we hear but do not understand

languages we have never known come into this world

growing up among us like children

who surprise us with the simple things they say.