The language he speaks and writes is spoken

and written by no one but him, which solves,

for him at least, the problem of audience,

unless somehow, against the odds, he believes

there is someone to whom his alphabet speaks,

his words, if they are words and not notes

of some other sort of singing, a system of clicks

and impossible vowels, the strange habitats

in which his bent and prickly syllables live.

The patience with which he clears his throat

and nods to us and begins, mild and tentative

at first, to read, or sing, or ceremonially recite

the epic of his people or the story of his God

or the description of his lost beloved’s body,

moves us so each time, we concentrate and nod

but understand nothing at all of what he

has said. And when he’s finished and looks at us,

expectantly, we, in our own inadequate tongues

and often gesticulating wildly, discuss

the majesty of his accomplishment, which no one

fathoms any part of, least of all our praise,

if that’s what it is, since we too are the last

or perhaps even the only ones ever to raise

into the air such utterances—from the past