My Grandaughter keeps signing at me.

[Gyppo]

Here's the background.  My grandaughter is five and half now, and she has a little deaf friend at school, and Alma acts as a translator for her.  They doubtless have private jokes about the teachers.  The friend has recently been given cochlear implants and although a fluent little signer is finding the new world of sounds a little overwhelming and painful at times.   

Alma learned sign language when her dad was learning it to communicate with deaf people at work.  She learned simple children's signing before she could speak properly, so it is, in effect, her first language.  She and her dad often have quite lengthy silent chats and although my daughter can understand most of it she's lost her own fluency.

=====

My Grandaughter keeps signing at me

I ask her to speak, to use her words, 
but  she just signs more slowly, 
as if she can't understand what I'm saying,
and looks at me with pity.

I guess this is how foreigners feel
when we English speak more slowly,
with brutally truncated sentences
and expect them to understand.

Gyppo

[indar]

Good to see you posting here again Gyppo. The 2 stanzas work together but either one almost stands alone as a small vignette, especially the second. A sweet poem at first read but with a deeper implication.