An Irish
child weeps at school
repeating its English.
After each mistake
The master
gouges another mark
on the tally stick
hung about its neck
Like a bell
on a cow, a hobble
on a straying goat.
To slur and stumble
In shame
the altered syllables
of your own name:
to stray sadly home
And find
the turf-cured width
of your parents' hearth
growing slowly alien:
In cabin
and field, they still
speak the old tongue.
You may greet no one.
To grow
a second tongue, as
harsh a humiliation
as twice to be born.
Decades later
that child's grandchild's
speech stumbles over lost
syllables of an old order.
