Stranger's Letters

Never through these uniform, white leaves
Can I be known.
Met, perhaps -
A poignant moment shared,
Traumatic bonding of acquaintances -
But there is more than these choice metaphors.
Words spoken, unrecorded;
Smiles and glimpses unnoticed by anyone
But God in His Heaven.
There are things unknown even to me
That would require a grander,
More perfect language to be told.
Aramaic, angelic tongue. God speak
That babies suck their knuckles to
In the wet womb.
And the dying list to hear
On the air, like a Magnificat
In ten kinds of ultra Latin.
Not this babbling Babel’s thesaurus
Of cliché and conundrum.
Not this amateur cryptograph,
Guttural and belching
Childish limericks in Aborigine’s brogue,
Exaggerated angst and dissipating whispers.
Such chronic shifts of telling,
What can they tell?
Tell me,
Do you think you really see?

(c) Tasha Chinnock 2006