'Learning a language' a poem by Olivia McMahon

Is like doing a jigsaw puzzle of a million pieces with a picture that keeps changing.

It's like getting lost in a foreign city without a map.

It's like playing tennis without a ball, like being an ant in a field of grasshoppers.

It's like being an acrobat with a broken leg, an actor without a script, 

It's like doing a jigsaw puzzle of a million pieces with a picture that keeps changing.

It's like getting lost in a foreign city without a map.

It's like playing tennis without a ball, a carpenter without a saw,

a storyteller without a middle or an end.

 But then gradually, it's like being out in the early morning with the mists lifting.

It's like a chink of light under a door, like finding the glove you were looking for, catching the train you thought you were going to miss, getting an unlooked-for present, exchanging a smile. And then one day it's like riding a bicycle very fast downhill.