In My Own Language

Some words exude sensation—
Some feelings call a hundred words to mind.
So why does my own mouth so often gape, dumb-struck,
Filled with an emptiness of words it cannot find?
To tell you that you're beautiful,
To ask you for a dance, a touch, a whisper,
Or for a silent glance that tells your answer—
Though what question I would ask I cannot say.

I could read to you from German poetry
Or French, recite Italian verse,
But here's the irony:
The language of my own heart is as a foreign tongue to me—
I never learnt it fluently.
What teacher or academy
Is there to train my mouth to speak
The words that match the meanings in my soul,
To part my lips at last and make my music whole?

Speaking in my heart's own tongue,
I dream, I'd sing a song to move your heart,
Tell stories to beguile your mind
And open up your eyes and mine
To see the beauty and the sadness
And the agony from which, habitually,
We turn away our eyes, and, turning, fail to see
The very nub and essence of existence and humanity.