Poem: "A Chorus of Voices"
Jun. 19th, 2012 02:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithThis is today's freebie. It was inspired by a prompt from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
aura55. You can read other poems in the Hart's Farm series through the Serial Poetry page.
Auduna walked through the farm,
listening to the odd swirl of conversations around her.
She spoke Swedish, and only Swedish,
and it had always been enough before.
But the farmborn spoke Swedish,
and Norwegian, and Irish, and English,
so that sometimes it all jumbled together
into something unique to their family.
Auduna cupped a hand over her swelling belly,
and realized that her child would grow up
with this sprawl of languages
that she herself could not always follow;
and it made her feel a little bit left out.
She took the stack of fresh dropcloths to the atelier
in the common house where Finlo and Inge
were entertaining the visiting French painter Fabrice.
Inge was already bent over her canvas,
with her backside hanging out of a paint-spattered apron,
while Finlo used his terrible French
to converse with Fabrice, busy at another canvas,
his dark brown hair already mussed
and his fluffy moustache smudged with paint
because he held his spare brush in his mouth.
Seated on a stool was a nude girl
like nobody Auduna had seen before --
straight black hair sleek as a horse's mane,
dark eyes tilted up at the corners,
skin the pale gold of sunlight before dawn.
"Auduna, you haven't met Ayako yet,
come and make friends!" said Finlo.
He flapped his hands at the girl,
motioning that she could get up and stretch.
Ayako smiled shyly at Auduna,
not showing any of her teeth,
as she accepted a cloth to wrap herself
and went to stand by the pot-bellied stove.
"You are very beautiful," Auduna said.
Ayako said something in a strange swooping tone
that rose and fell like birdsong.
"Belle," Fabrice prompted Auduna, (1)
pronouncing the word slowly and carefully.
"Belle," Auduna repeated,
and apparently Ayako understood French,
because she smiled again.
Finlo added, "In Irish we could say
Tá súile galánta donna aici.
She has beautiful brown eyes." (2)
So Auduna repeated that too,
stumbling over the unfamiliar words.
Ayako spread her golden fingers
over Auduna's rounded belly
and said something to Fabrice.
The Frenchman translated,
"Ayako wishes you a healthy baby."
Suddenly Auduna realized
that no matter what language people spoke,
they tended to say the same things,
a chorus of voices twining together
in melody and harmony,
as familiar as the touch of mother and child.
* * *
1) The French word for "beautiful" is belle.
2) Tá súile galánta donna aici. for "She has beautiful brown eyes." appears on Talk Irish.
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(no subject)
Date: 2012-06-19 07:51 pm (UTC)*bow, flourish*
Date: 2012-06-19 08:04 pm (UTC)Re: *bow, flourish*
Date: 2012-06-19 08:14 pm (UTC)I really liked Auduna's reaction. How she felt left out at first, but then realized she doesn't have to know the languages to be included. =) The juxtaposition of family speak and trying to communicate with somebody you have no languages in common with is also really awesome.
Re: *bow, flourish*
Date: 2012-06-25 01:41 am (UTC)This series already has bits of Swedish and Irish scattered through it. There will probably be more. I like writing stuff with a specific ethnic background because it gives me specific sources to use. So then that comes out in the storytelling. Here people have taken bits of several different cultures and woven them together into something that is related, yet unique. So it's going to show in the way they speak.
>> Also how people will change their accent or dialect based on who they speak to (my father always does this, he speaks in a completely different accent with his brothers than with the rest of us). And the evolution of this personal language is also really interesting, since it's based on so many things. <<
The linguistic term for that shift is "code-switching." It's a cool concept.
>> I really liked Auduna's reaction. How she felt left out at first, but then realized she doesn't have to know the languages to be included. =) The juxtaposition of family speak and trying to communicate with somebody you have no languages in common with is also really awesome. <<
I think there will be more of this also. Some of the poems are about knowing and appreciating who you are, and others are about discovering who you are.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-06-19 07:59 pm (UTC)Yay!
Date: 2012-06-25 01:57 am (UTC)There's a linguistic observation that anything someone wants to say, can be said in any language. It's just easier to say some things in certain languages, because the grammar and vocabulary varies. But hey, there's a YouTube of a guy talking about his iPod in Dine. It's possible.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-06-19 08:41 pm (UTC)I'm curious about Ayako! Why does she understand French, and how did she end up in Sweden?
Poem
Date: 2012-06-20 01:21 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-06-20 03:48 am (UTC)Although I only speak English and limited Auslan (Australian sign language) I adore being in spaces where there are multiple other languages around too. It seems so much richer to me!
Yay!
Date: 2012-06-20 04:03 am (UTC)Thank you!
>>Although I only speak English and limited Auslan (Australian sign language) I adore being in spaces where there are multiple other languages around too. It seems so much richer to me!<<
I haven't seen Auslan, but I know a few words in American Sign Language and in Plains Indian Sign. I tend to switch that way when I lose my voice.
There is another poem from today's fishbowl (not sponsored or posted yet) that follows "A Chorus of Voices," since
(no subject)
Date: 2012-07-03 05:54 pm (UTC)