Why do I learn another language?

why do I learn another language? so that I can share in your anguish;
A sorrow shared is half a sorrow; but who can share sorrow in a language borrowed?
"O si vous avez des yeux que vos yeux s'emplissent de larmes."[i]
But they don't have eyes: they don't see the harm
in everyone speaking their language atrophied as their minds languish
at your feet is the same damned dish of second hand adverbs and adjectives.
Day after day the same prison food to the non-native tongue tastes so crude

unable to express the subtlety of my mood "I'm not trying to be rude I read all the way through to Jude
but there was no Revelation I was expecting some kind of elevation

but you gave me French when I needed Haitian." I can't describe the sensation

that I saw when I sang
"Chamo Kwoni gibala”[ii] with Nairobi’s orphans
I can't describe the sensation that I saw when I sang
"Nkosi sikelele Africa"[iii] with Desmond Tutu
I can't describe the sensation that I saw when I sang

"Kwaze kwa wonakala"[iv] with a Kenyan woman exiled in Columbus

I can't describe the sensation that I saw “Jesu da ho ya”[v]

I can't describe the sensation that I saw “Hol no mbitiye da”[vi]

I can't describe the sensation that I saw…
because I didn't feel it, except vicariously Oh how the mother tongue must hang precariously
on the lips of a motherless child who's too scared to sleep.

yes a sorrow shared is half a sorrow weeping may remain for a night
but rejoicing, tomorrow. ‘cause the other half of the proverb's also right:
Joy shared is twice a joy;

but how can I, a goy, respond to the holocaust,

How can I a white boy respond to the lives lost
in slavery, imperialism conquest and colonialism?
I can not share your joy or your sorrow,
unless I can learn to respond tomorrow:
“Αντίνο', ου μὲν καλὰ καὶ εσθλὸς εὼν αγορεύεις:

τίς γὰρ δὴ ξεινον καλει άλλοθεν αυτὸς επελθὼν

άλλον γ', ει μὴ των οὶ δημιοεργοὶ έασι,

μάντιν ὴ ιητηρα κακων ὴ τέκτονα δούρων,

ὴ καὶ θέσπιν αοιδόν, ό κεν τέρπησιν αείδων;

ουτοι γὰρ κλητοί γε βροτων επ' απείρονα γαιαν.

πτωχὸν δ' ουκ αν τις καλέοι τρύξοντα ὲαυτόν .”[vii]
to Antinous because each one of us is an Odysseus
and it should not be so odd to see if your Odyssey extends from عربي [viii]

that I should be the one to insist
that لا إله إلا أﷲ[ix] is not bla-bla-bla-bla-bla-bla-bla
I do not envy the chanteur Kabylie

whose شهادة [x] is on lien his tongue has been ripped clean
out of his "dirty mouth" so that now no matter how loud he shouts
it can only be in the language of his oppressor who has tenure, though he's not a professor
I guess you're starting to understand the plight of the Donatist confessor.
maybe he's the one who refused to say monsieur.

that may sound a bit anachronistic but I pray the one whose triptych said "Deo Laudes"[xi] in Latin cryptic

will reach to heaven by and by…
Why? Why?
Why am I being so obscure, that I am just talking to myself? I
don't see eye to eye with anybody else.
Except for you, poor beggar in dirty road-worn rags

and you, orphan, whose soccer ball is made of plastic bags

and you, haggard priest whose brow sags;

for you exiled woman and for you, my Guinéen friend

but most of all it is for the imazighen[xii] who again and again
have been broken and tokened and told then
that their men and women are just children
whose sandbox has outgrown them.
Let me share in your language your anguish,

your languishing vanquish… but let us also share in the banquet:
"Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemy. . .
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
forever."

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[i] “O if you have eyes, may your eyes fill with tears” – Chants Kabylie 1982 Anonymous Algerian Poet

[ii] The opening line of a traditional Kenyan song in Luo (?) a Bantu language spoken by a minority of Kenyans. The song is about a monkey stealing fruit; an arrangement by Mwashuma Nyatta ’02 was performed by the Kuumba Singers in the spring of 2002.

[iii] “God Bless Africa” – Xhosa, the opening line of the South African National Anthem

[iv] First line from a Swahili Christian song – “When He comes I will be like Him”

[v] Christian song in Kikuyu, a Kenyan language spoken by the largest ethnic group of Kenya

[vi] “What is your Name” – Pulaar, a West African Language

[vii] “Antinous, no fair words are these thou speakest, noble though thou art.

Who, pray, of himself ever seeks out and bids a stranger from abroad,

unless it be one of those that are masters of some public craft,

a prophet, or a healer of ills, or a builder, aye,

Or a divine minstrel, who gives delight with his song?

For these men are bidden all over the boundless earth;

But no one is likely to ask a beggar who will only worry him.”

-Eumaios, Odyssey17.381-387 (transl. A.T. Murray, Loeb Edition)

[viii] ‘arabi – representing any arabic speaking country

[ix] la ilaha illa allah – there is no god but God

[x] shahada – the Muslim statement of faith (which includes the above)

[xi] “Praise God” – Latin, the watchword of the North African Donatist church

[xii] name of the indigenous population of Northern Africa, meaning “free [people]”

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