In which a Pakistani poet, born and raised in the United Arab Emirates, expresses her love of her mother's mother tongue by way of listening to another mother and daughter.
There is a feeling
that evanesces, resurfaces.
Like watching a car move
in parallel from the seat of a train.
It appears, disappears.
Showing itself, hiding itself.
Its metallic green
between the trees
in the windows playing
a game of hide-and-seek.
In a cafe, I watch a girl and her mother
recover from a London expedition. We
share a table,
people who don’t take up
too much space.
They converse in Mandarin.
Mother and daughter, roll out words
in shapes and sizes,
familiar to them.
Ancient and native words,
sewn together to make that snug and cosy
blanket of consanguinity.
Someone thousands of years ago
spoke the first word of Mandarin.
Words when written emulate
the shape of things.
Passed on through time
in multitude forms.
The shape of things are multitude.
Too many, not one, infinite.
When the womb becomes
the vessel of deliverance,
language becomes
the heirloom of heritage.
It is that feeling I
miss. I cannot
forget it. I fade
in and out of it.
The flesh of it,
the fuss of it.
It cannot go away
even if its origins are,
with time, lapping away.
It is an heirloom I carry with me.
It is the fabric of the breath I take.
It is the rhythm of the sound I make.
To speak it is to exist but
to hear it is to have faith.
Watch Namal Siddiqui perform her poem “Mother Tongue.”
Discover more art by Salma Arastu.
