Blanco

[TrevorConway]

The page was foreign
,like the country in which I’d landed.
Months after I’d moulded to its ways,
I had nothing to say. 

It’s true – I was distracted
by tedious tasks, forms to fill,
by sun and sea, afternoon drinks,
Mediterranean manners, 

but these weren’t to blame,
nor, indeed, the child who needed feeding,
changing and dressing,
putting to bed cleaner than a poem.

Amongst Spaniards,
I was clumsy, unskilled,
and this frustration of words spilled
over the page – killed it. 

Language had always been there to taste,
had always been ripe and sweet.
Now, it hung
beyond my reach. 

How else to taste
but board a plane
and say to the world:
“I’m home again”?

[Eric Ashford]

As am Brit transplanted to America I feel this. Same language of course but the language culture took some getting used to.
A very good write.