MY FIRST LANGUAGE alive in this time I think of the men and women of a thousand years from tomorrow I am still learning my first language and the sentences I now practice must be completed by them I feel I know their sadness and weakness I too ran out of strength and became accomplished at grieving I share their fascination with swans and fire I save boxes I empty thinking to fill them again in a dry riverbed I picked up stones because under some red orange salamanders hid like electricity concealed inside the wires there was someone calling my name so I turned and hollered it back exactly as it had been said-- will it go for a thousand years what does it matter can I make it simply leave my body