Butchered Tongue

As a child it was the place names Singing at me as the first thing How the mouth must be employed In every corner of itself To say "Appalacicola" Or "Hushpukena" like "Gweebara" A promise softly sung of somewhere else And as a young man Blessed to pass so many road signs And have my foreign ear made fresh again On each unlikely sound But feel at home Hearing a music That few still understand A butchered tongue still Still singing here above the ground The ears were chopped From young men If the pitch-cap didn't kill them They are buried Without scalp In the shattered bedrock of our home You may never know your fortune Until the distance has been shown between What is lost forever And what can still be known So far from home To have a stranger call you darling And have your guarded heart Be lifted like a child up by the hand In some town that just means 'Home' to them With no translator left to sound A butchered tongue Still singing here above the ground