Earth Tongues

In a small Russian village the people speak like animals and their animals listen like humans. Deep in a Malay forest there are apes that love God with a slow burning love that turns their hair orange. They are called. "old man of the forest" but they are as simple as children. In Borneo head-hunters used to eat tigers but now tigers eat their fearful eyes. In a Derbyshire village they once threw stones at strangers they knew that the newcomers were bad news but they had not the words to say so. They spoke a language of salted manure combed through the wool of a native tongue. Foxes have dens, and men have hearth and home, but the earth translates best that which is not said a a roofless voice all may understand.