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1 " Rim are there horizonswhere there is no horizontalwhere mountains fold space,hold distance up?embedded in a canyonour heads tilt instinctively.here earth meets sky,we can reach it; the rimdoes not shimmer and recede. we lean into diagonal lives,relieved of right angleseyes, arms, hearts drawnupward, vectored to ridgelineskeenly aware of the slantof time, its shape and substance;it is a wedge; it movesalong ray-stroked slopes;we pass into it, are passed over. "
― Laurelyn Whitt
2 " BUNAHANWhen the last speaker of Borofalls silent,who will noticethe first-grown featherof a bird’s wing? (gansuthi)or feel how far pretendingto love (onsay) isfrom lovingfor the last time (onsra)?Quiet and uneasy, in anunfamiliar place (asusu)no one sees her, or listens;there is less of herthan there was.The last speaker feelsBoro’s world fall apart,knowledge unravels:healing plants gounseen; the bodies of animalsare unreadable.With a last thought, onguboy(to love it all, from the heart),she leaves fragmentsof the world she held in place.We touch their husks,about to speak andabout not to speak(bunhan, bunahan);awash in loss,incomplete.Note:The italicized words are from Boro, an endangered language still spoken in parts of northern India. For more on this story, see Mark Abley’s Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages. "