All day long I’m surrounded by people speaking Mandarin and Taiwanese. It’s beautiful, but at the moment I can only pick out certain words – therefore, whole sentences remain non-existent – therefore, I haven’t got a clue what anybody’s saying. But, still, it’s beautiful. I was stood at my bedroom window with a cup of tea and could hear one of my Taiwanese flat mates on the phone to a friend.
That’s how this poem came about.
Such a foreign tongue
For this alien to understand.
It speaks its riddles,
Then laughs!
At what?
I don’t know – but I will.
Because this foreign tongue,
With its sing-along tones,
Will not be foreign for long
For this foreigner,
Who is keen to unlock the riddles,
Will sound,
- One day -
Like them,
The Riddlers,
And, I too, will become a riddler
Who laughs at something he understands.
