Walking back home down Leith Street*, I Got Involved and tried to direct an American couple to an eaterie that wasn't closed (as opposed to the one they were trying to get into). They looked confused, told me they didn't understand, and I had to modulate to a slow RP before they got me. As I walked away, the first couple of lines of the poem occurred to me. By the time I got home, I had most of the first two stanzas down and was starting on a third which I promptly forgot (something about renegotiating sunsets, I think) and a fourth which became the beginning of what's now the third. And then, when I got home and started writing it down, it went somewhere completely different... Doubtless it'll evolve again over performances. If I perform it. Hmm... :)
And after I'd had a wee cry, I recorded a version of it here - maybe it'll help someone else as well:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I've been speaking French again
Lending shrugs and stumbling syllables
To the ether,
Tangling the back of my throat into
Friendly growls
Adding an hourglass pinch to familiar vowels.
Retrouver:
"Tu me reconnais?"
"Mais, bien sûr, mon ami: voila, c'est Aout,
"Je retour une autre année!"
I've been speaking Scots again,
All glottal stops,
Dialectually exacting,
My mother, God rest her,
Would be ecstatic that so much remains,
Rooted in Liz Lochhead poems
From an early age, Rabbie Burns
Emerging with my England-buried Rs.
My hair reflects my rediscovered roots,
Blooming soft and wide
With birling curls,
Lighter. Enlightened...
Slightly frightening.
I've been swallowing my tongue again,
Humming needs into submission,
A prism of listening,
Delays, fears,
Anxiety like a weight,
The freight of Maybe dragging
Like a gag.
Travel woes and first-time fears,
The year gone, ambitions bitter,
Bitten back, tucked down,
Gullet clutched,
A hobble of mediocrity
While brainweasels gambol, their words
Given free rein:
"Too old"
"Not a commodity"
"Odd"
"Not proper"
"No longer hot property,
"If you ever were…"
"And worse - you're permitted
"Merely for the sake of all the things you do
"That no-one else wants to
"And you, too desperate to belong,
"Too keen to help,
"You people-pleaser
"Trudge, grinning awkwardly, on."
I have been killing weasels again.
Turns out they're blighted by kindness
And company,
And people who hail you in the street,
Smiles lighting their eyes,
And people who want to hold you,
Touch your heart,
Ask after your day's hardness,
And those who wait to walk the long way with you.
They're killed by soft water
And salt water
And tap water
And bottled water,
Drowning in a flail
Because they'll always fail
To seek the higher ground.
Today I have been learning to speak again,
Hear my poor, sore voice as sweet,
Hear it as they hear it,
He hears it,
She hears it.
When it sings,
No longer strangled by
Dangling weights,
Cast free for friendship's sake.
Thank you.
_______________________
* I get it wrong in the video and say "Leith Walk", which I even knew wasn't right at the time! :)
