Every Language is a Second Language

Every Language is a Second Language


Shaman talk and beast talk
are second language too.
First language is what happens
to our skin and eyes and mind in the world,
the hurt of happen.
The touch of hand.
The wind.

We can name all those things later,
but when they happen,
they are first language talking to us,
and we speak that language
by moving, touching, tasting.

I mean the movement from perception into language
is far greater in its abstraction, its terror,
than the movement from English
to Japanese or Tibetan.
My tide, its idea, is to keep people firmly aware
of how remote all language is
from the healing joyous horror
of primary sensation.


Robert Kelly

Posted over on American Poetry Review