And what then is this tongue
Whose gene sequence was mapped in some Norwegian wood,
Aged and matured in German waters,
Fortified by encounters with the brood
Of Celtic dreams, the Norman and the Dane;
And here and there, the refracted remains
Of Roman chariotways and Grecian urns-
This strange achaeological site of the mind,
This strange goulash of geographies,
Of centuries; That in my brown-skinned
Hands thrusts the spade
With which I must excavate
Its vast cemetry of the laurelled dead,
And perhaps inspite of their angry glares
Must fill its words with the dust, the airs
Of my cities, so far removed
From te mist-licked grass of its home;
Must play upon its verbs and orchestrate
The million fractalled destinies
Of my country, that shall yet
Not listen, nor shall I be heard
Within the pages of western journals, for there I am
An usurper, a grotesque perverter of the word.
Neither of home, nor the far bank; I-
A bent Trishankoo in a semantic purgatory.
