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Open Poetry #47

Pending Deafness

Sunshine

Administrator

Member Empyrean

since 1999-06-25

Posts 63354
Listening to every heart

0 posted 2011-02-19 01:53 PM

Pending Deafness

Shall I be as Beethoven
and suffer the loudness of quiet ~
to rely solely
on tonal qualities
that tremor through floorboards
and feel the disquiet
of one's touch
in their nervousness
of this
affliction?

A child wonders at blindness
& plays such games of bluff
enough so to be glad
to remove the folds of cloth
from face &
rejoice
in the light.

There, too, to play in water
& sea foam and know
(only) momentarily
the closed hush of
water's muffled qualities,
only to spring forth & up
&
relish the cry of the gull
or sound of bluejay, scolding.

To know deafness
may be coming
one does hidden things ~
listens carefully to all words
and measures with fluttering
fingertips
the beating heart, the child's whisper,
the cry of babes,
even a dial tone
&
most certainly,
a lover's voice.

Then quietly, one prays
that this pending deafness
is a long time
coming.

~*~

©Karilea Rilling Jungel
Repost from
24 September, 2000
Revised slightly 2011