Ephebe

She puts up with us pretty well
Despite our manifest belief
That we're accommodating her
And not the other way around.

It's on her to learn our language.
We make a minimal effort
To understand her take on it
And mostly call her hard work cute.

Oh well. She'll be one of us soon.
She's mastering nouns and phrases
And picking up speech rhythms.
She overhears our arguments,

Nuances fine as melodies,
Robust as polyrhythmic blues.
She's listening; she gets it straight.
She'll be a participant soon.

As for us, we can't remember
When we first played the game like this.
We only rehearse strategies
We learned at the knees of giants.