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.
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