Mother Tongue (Poetry)

I never think of you as anything
but young — uprooted, sapling-strong —
I do not know you old —
you left long before that blending-in began —
saved it for some other speaking life.

You took me home once — really home —
back to Dublin’s streets and singing pubs
and there I heard you change
as the city reabsorbed you —
took you in —
reclaimed you with its sly and easy charm.

Too easy — as you settled glad and yarned
and stories lived — improbable
as fairy tales in the Guinness-hearty fug
of all their telling...
I listened close as any foreigner would
drawn in by novelty
but isolated on the edge
of understanding all that blood-tie crack.

Like you’d gargled with the Liffey
your voice — your loosened tongue alive
your every word undid
all trace of time you’d spent away
unlearning who you were...

Now native Dublin spilled from you
victorious — declared
as your true accent branding you
a true son of that land.