Written piece
The thread of language
Marie ESSAMA
Cameroon
About this piece
This poem explores language as the invisible thread woven through time, shaping history, identity and civilisation. It presents language as both a force of unity and division. Binding cultures together and drawing boundaries that define and fracture them.
The Thread of Language
Firmly interwoven into time,
With a strength that pays not a dime,
Are words on a line,
Before a page is stained with wine.
Shifting across epochs,
Carrying men’s links up a notch,
Molding and dividing history with reproach,
Filament of provision or mooch?
Like an unending cipher,
The fibers of language barely falter,
Across cultures and nations they are shared,
As the one and only living bread.
Its promises of unity are broken by its defined boundary,
Bold stitches in its identity,
A fragile yarn between the memories and stories of this age,
Where between power and freedom there is no coalition,
Yet it remains the cradle of civilisation:
Language, the thread.