Foreign Languages
Hearing conversations
Spoken in a foreign tongue
Serves as a reminder of
The folks we live among.
Immigrants from distant shores
Residing where we live
Add a little spiciness
With all they have to give:
Hints of other cultures,
Both alluring and exotic;
Customs that we might just find
A tiny bit quixotic.
When I hear people talking
In a language rich and strange,
I wonder at the meaning of
The words that they exchange.
It’s like a secret code to which
I do not have the key,
And likely what they’re saying
Doesn’t have to do with me.
Yet still, if we could comprehend
A language not our own,
Perhaps the world would cease to be
A xenophobic zone.
Copyright © Ilene Bauer | Year Posted 2012
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