Poetry Thursday - Morning, Just by Alberto Rios

This week's poem comes via Instagram - who knew IG would supply the "verbal" as well as the visual?

Alberto Rios (b.1952) is new to me, and a good find - thank you for this "small story about the sky", Carol.

He grew up in a Spanish-speaking family but was forced to speak English at school in Arizona, leading him to develop a third language, which he describes as "one that was all our own". My own experience of speaking one language at home and another at school wasn't as extreme as his, but his view of translation, or rather re-naming, resonates with me:

"I have been around other languages all my life, particularly Spanish, and have too often thought of the act of translation as simply giving something two names. But it is not so, not at all. Rather than filling out, a second name for something pushes it forward, forward and backward, and gives it another life."