here where the roots dig into the ground
it must be two thousand years old
maybe three
climb up with me three quarters of the way
we barely recognize the sounds
but linguist-historians tell us
it has already separated itself
from what the Angles and the Saxons spoke
it has taken on a cast of its own
borrowing of course from the Welsh, Irish, and Scots
but also from the Danes and Norsemen
and has brambled a grammar of its own
recognizably the ancestor of our own
climb up with me again
up near the top
where the trunk
twenty feet across at ground level
is no thicker than my thigh
and sways with breezes
bends with winds
picks up African words
words from anywhere
if they be useful
we make up words from our own
and other people's languages
and even grammar twists in the hands of master arborists
two or three thousand years and still in health
still growing
still forking twisting splitting and recombining
still grafting new words and new forms
still poking out pods and berries
and shaking in wonder when a wind or breeze
brings new twigs to adhere and attach
up here and even higher is where the poets come to listen
to enliven an oldest way to communicate
with words and grammar and meanings
the tree barely recognizes so far
but will add soon
no wonder we can barely understand
our children
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