Laguage and Speech (B)

Fossil Speech

Sounds from soft, red flesh;
Released with the breath of life,
Through the box of voice-sound,
Through the cave of mouth,
Sculpted to taste and send
meanings with tongue.

Sounds mating in flight with message of eyes,
Sounds flying into patterns, into transformations,
Into voice-waftings, as caresses of faces!
As landings on faces, of speech-formations!

Words so stubborn, so embedded,
As to be petrified, to be time-locked,
Into moving rythym and chanting beat,
Defying conquest-storms of culture-shock,

Speech sounds given as kisses defying death,
Mouth to mouth spirit resuscitation, an imortality.
Deep language carved into stone
And etched onto sheaths of wood.

Language buried, as scrolls in caves,
As bios and tales in tombs,
Carried, on culture's beasts and vessels,
As treasured pages of Ages.

Speech as human spirit's reach
To endure every breach
Of love-nurture by artifice-culture;
Love passed as birthright to all and each,
As soul-life sounds midst
Ruins of bones and abode-stones.

Sounds regathered not for science shelves,
But as forage, for the Soul
To speak again what is older,
What is stronger than constructed stone:
Speech calling from the fossil Soul.

(adapted from Ch. XI, "Ecopoetry," in The Last Human Spring