LATIN VERBS

Genitive, dative, ablative, the babble sound of Latin verbs,
their rhythmical grimace, their declension.
Yet the lilt, the sway, the dance of vowels,
that mesmerise the mind, entice, amuse.

The music of mankind, their many vocal songs,
each land their dialect, their form of phrase,
all from the human throat, the mouth, the nose,
each utterance its own expression as air goes in, goes out.

All joined by Latin in the west in east the hieroglyphs,
calligraphic symbols, scrolls, painted engraved and burnt on tiles,
such arts, the books medieval, the paintings of the orient,
with poems illustrated fond beliefs, in ink or in relief.

Words our common communicators sounded round the globe
some sharp some blunt and muffled, some sung like birds and beasts,
some sounded from the minarets, the Bible read at prayers,
all part of inheritance, enriched this mode of speech,
our world so tiny spinning where none of it is breached.