I'd like to start today, also, by acknowledging
the other languages that were here
before Spanish, and before English--
the Tohono O'odham language, Yaqui language,
the Chiricahua Apache language.
Further north, the languages spoken
by the Pimas and the Mojaves, the Supais, the Hopi,
the Navajo.
Where I live now in Alaska, there
were 42 languages at the time of contact.
And now there are six that may have enough childhood speakers
to exist outside of archives.
This poem is called "Mother Tongue."
"In a language recently disappeared, god is talking.
No one knows anymore how long the leaves stay silent,
how deep the stone's truth lies buried, what
silent kinship glints off blond fur where grizzly cubs graze.
In the far times, nearly everyone
could speak with salmon, water, clouds, stars.
Every body.
Now no one sees the ocean though it lives in every tear.
In a language lost to us god is singing."