Babel
by Helen Jenks
I have spoken to you in a thousand tongues—
stranger, friend, lover, partner, each one as
foreign and unfamiliar as the next. My mother
said it is hard to learn a language,
that the sounds come strange and awkward on
the tongue, clumsy in the roof of one’s mouth.
But with time there are syllables and words,
rocky vowels and crumbling consonants,
a new vocabulary prattling sweetly in the draining
estuary of the day. We learned to speak! And with
it came tender blather of newness, babel, babel,
babbling like the brook
that sweeps across the forest floor.
Sometimes we are silent now, but the
words still come, gentle and unassuming,
as if we have not grown older and
quieter
in the days that have passed. But we’ve
learned, even still—oh darling,
let me speak this tongue for the rest
of our days.
About the Author
Helen is a history student and poet based in Dublin with a nervous disposition and a fondness for jumpers and other knitted things. She enjoys writing about the sublime, romantic, and nostalgic—poetry from life, in all its many forms. When not writing, you can find her swearing at Dublin’s rude and rather irreverent seagulls, or hosting tea parties with her stuffed animals, who are all very polite and supportive of her work. She has recently started her own poetry magazine, The Madrigal, and hopes for its success! Her work is forthcoming in The Martello and Eucalyptus & Rose, and recently published in Poetically Magazine, Spellbinder, and Seedling Poets. She can be found on Twitter at @rosemaryandwool and @themadrigalpress!