Margaret Atwood - Marsh Languages lyrics
[Margaret Atwood - Marsh Languages lyrics]
The dark soft languages are being silenced:
Mothertongue Mothertongue Mothertongue
Falling one by one back into the moon
Languages of marshes
Language of the roots of rushes tangled
Together in the ooze
Marrow cells twinning themselves
Inside the warm core of the bone:
Pathways of hidden light in the
Body fade and wink out
The sibilants and gutturals
The cave languages, the half-light
Forming at the back of the throat
The mouth's damp velvet moulding
The lost syllable for 'I' that
Did not mean separate
All are becoming sounds no longer
Heard because no longer spoken
And everything that could once be
Said in them has ceased to exist
The languages of the dying suns
Are themselves dying
But even the word for this has been forgotten
The mouth against skin, vivid and fading
Can no longer speak both
Cherishing and farewell
It is now only a mouth, only skin
There is no more longing
Translation was never possible
Instead there was always only
Conquest, the influx
Of the language of hard nouns
The language of metal
The language of either or
The one language that has eaten all others
Mothertongue Mothertongue Mothertongue
Falling one by one back into the moon
Languages of marshes
Language of the roots of rushes tangled
Together in the ooze
Marrow cells twinning themselves
Inside the warm core of the bone:
Pathways of hidden light in the
Body fade and wink out
The sibilants and gutturals
The cave languages, the half-light
Forming at the back of the throat
The mouth's damp velvet moulding
The lost syllable for 'I' that
Did not mean separate
All are becoming sounds no longer
Heard because no longer spoken
And everything that could once be
Said in them has ceased to exist
The languages of the dying suns
Are themselves dying
But even the word for this has been forgotten
The mouth against skin, vivid and fading
Can no longer speak both
Cherishing and farewell
It is now only a mouth, only skin
There is no more longing
Translation was never possible
Instead there was always only
Conquest, the influx
Of the language of hard nouns
The language of metal
The language of either or
The one language that has eaten all others