Death of a Language

Your death was the last breath of a language

Our language.

Now when we laugh, it is

In a foreign tongue.

Many of us have been rendered

Mute

Some of us hunt for words

To capture your peace.

But the script has changed;

We cannot read these signs yet,

And we’ve already forgotten

The way our mouths used to move.

.

We know we have lost our language

We sit on your green bamboo chair

Stare at the trees you had planned

And squint to see your smile

Dancing with the swaying branches

.

Sometimes we remember

A stray phrase

The edge of a word

Or a whole syllable.

And for a flash your face lights up

Again.

.

But who can we tell, of

Our flashes of happiness

When you took its language

Away with you, smiling

All the way?