This Mammoth
is tiny
as a knuckle bone –– a nugget
of mammoth ivory
worked with a flint
in the midst of a hard
white world ––
a talisman, a charm
for you, child,
to clutch against
the ice nights ––
Things
that shiver and shake
your bones and the earth’s ––
Take
this syllable, strong
as any carved
by our tongue ––
Let it sing
in the cave
of your hand:
mammoth song
mammoth song
mammoth song ––
These Columns
of words
they say are the oldest
in the language.
Ash
Bark
Black
stacked
as if they were blocks
or books.
Fire
Flow
Give
What I would. No.
Their power
is in their stark
separateness.
Hand
Hear
I
listen and pick them up
as if they were things
which they are.
Man
Mother
Not
They sit
apart
from each other
like any family.
Old
Pull
Spit
They have work
to do. They sweat.
That
The
This
They stutter.
We
What
Who
but stutter articulately.
Worm
You
Precisely.
I pick them up.
They are things.
*According to a 2013 study by the University of Redding
the above 23 ‘ultraconserved words’ are the oldest
in the English language, with ancestors dating back 15,000 years.
_______________
Mark Granier's poems have been published in various outlets, including The New Statesman, The TLS, Magma, Poetry Review, Verse Daily and The Daily Poem. His fifth collection, Ghostlight: New & Selected Poems, was published by Salmon Poetry in 2017.
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