In my mother tongue
I sang the songs my own mother taught me
In the language of her tongue
With the rhythm of zephyr thrumming through grass blades
And the mixture of plucked leaves sifting through warm winds
Arranged in packets of supple tunes.
I sang my-mother-taught-songs with the rain
And beats made by the sounds of dew kneeling into hay
Bending afresh those dried sinews to soft buds.
I sing a tuneless song of my mother tongue
One that is shaped in the language of sadness
And told in the name of the burning earth.
The rain has hidden
Dew has no name under the conflagrating skies
The sky pulses an elegy for the earth
Who has now buried itself in a shallow ditch
Then resurrects at the taste of our sweat hitting its dear back.
We sing the songs brought to us by the earth
In the language of her mourning and the breaths she died with
We hope the sky listens
That the rain may find its path at the tips of our tongues.
In the language of her tongue
With the rhythm of zephyr thrumming through grass blades
And the mixture of plucked leaves sifting through warm winds
Arranged in packets of supple tunes.
I sang my-mother-taught-songs with the rain
And beats made by the sounds of dew kneeling into hay
Bending afresh those dried sinews to soft buds.
I sing a tuneless song of my mother tongue
One that is shaped in the language of sadness
And told in the name of the burning earth.
The rain has hidden
Dew has no name under the conflagrating skies
The sky pulses an elegy for the earth
Who has now buried itself in a shallow ditch
Then resurrects at the taste of our sweat hitting its dear back.
We sing the songs brought to us by the earth
In the language of her mourning and the breaths she died with
We hope the sky listens
That the rain may find its path at the tips of our tongues.
Keren-happuch Garba is a Nigerian undergraduate. She has won a distinguished honorable mention award from Bowseat's 2021 contest and some of her works can be found on Teen Ink, Carthartic literary magazine and Write the World Review.