Poem: "A Chorus of Voices"
This is today's freebie. It was inspired by a prompt from aura55. You can read other poems in the Hart's Farm series through the Serial Poetry page.
A Chorus of Voices
Auduna walked through the farm,
listening to the odd swirl of conversations around her.
She spoke Swedish, and only Swedish,
and it had always been enough before.
But the farmborn spoke Swedish,
and Norwegian, and Irish, and English,
so that sometimes it all jumbled together
into something unique to their family.
Auduna cupped a hand over her swelling belly,
and realized that her child would grow up
with this sprawl of languages
that she herself could not always follow;
and it made her feel a little bit left out.
She took the stack of fresh dropcloths to the atelier
in the common house where Finlo and Inge
were entertaining the visiting French painter Fabrice.
Inge was already bent over her canvas,
with her backside hanging out of a paint-spattered apron,
while Finlo used his terrible French
to converse with Fabrice, busy at another canvas,
his dark brown hair already mussed
and his fluffy moustache smudged with paint
because he held his spare brush in his mouth.
Seated on a stool was a nude girl
like nobody Auduna had seen before --
straight black hair sleek as a horse's mane,
dark eyes tilted up at the corners,
skin the pale gold of sunlight before dawn.
"Auduna, you haven't met Ayako yet,
come and make friends!" said Finlo.
He flapped his hands at the girl,
motioning that she could get up and stretch.
Ayako smiled shyly at Auduna,
not showing any of her teeth,
as she accepted a cloth to wrap herself
and went to stand by the pot-bellied stove.
"You are very beautiful," Auduna said.
Ayako said something in a strange swooping tone
that rose and fell like birdsong.
"Belle," Fabrice prompted Auduna, (1)
pronouncing the word slowly and carefully.
"Belle," Auduna repeated,
and apparently Ayako understood French,
because she smiled again.
Finlo added, "In Irish we could say
Tá súile galánta donna aici.
She has beautiful brown eyes." (2)
So Auduna repeated that too,
stumbling over the unfamiliar words.
Ayako spread her golden fingers
over Auduna's rounded belly
and said something to Fabrice.
The Frenchman translated,
"Ayako wishes you a healthy baby."
Suddenly Auduna realized
that no matter what language people spoke,
they tended to say the same things,
a chorus of voices twining together
in melody and harmony,
as familiar as the touch of mother and child.
* * *
1) The French word for "beautiful" is belle.
2) Tá súile galánta donna aici. for "She has beautiful brown eyes." appears on Talk Irish.