DEDICATIONS, PLEDGES, COMMITMENTS. For the past. For my own path. For surprises. For mistakes that worked so well. For tomorrow if I'm there. For the next real thing. Then for carrying it all through whatever is necessary. For following the little god who speaks only to me. --William Stafford

Friday, August 31, 2012

Tinnitis

The moon, of course, is always
 there -- day moon, but it's still there; behind the clouds but
it's still there.
                            --Richard Siken

She is going deaf,
 one part of growing old,
heavy as a sigh.
It's always there, a dim figure
like the moon, absent at noon
but nevertheless, always there.
At night it lays itself down with her,
runs into the pillowed darkness
under her ear, a ringing of bells
that fills an absence of sound.
It is something from her aging brain, filling
the enormous void, woven like a bright thread
through her sleep, like ripples from
a thrown rock in a pool of water.
Some part of it is music, sometimes
a string quartet playing a high c-sharp,
other times the reedy whine of a clarinet.
Quieted by day, it sinks like the stone ghost
of the moon, meandering at the edges
of light, but still there,
always there.

1 comment:

Tamie said...

As a writer, I know that the majority of us write about what we know, see and feel. Seems we have even more in common than I thought! And to think, before Tinnitis, I thought the hearing impaired lived in a quieter world. Was I ever wrong!

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1. In dreams I am often young and thin with long blond hair. 2. In real life I am no longer young, or thin, or blonde. 3. My back hurts. 4. I hate to sleep alone. (Fortunately I don't have to!) 5. My great grandfather had 2 wives at once. 6. I wish I had more self-discipline. (I was once fired from a teaching position in a private school because they said I was "too unstructured and undisciplined." --Who, me??? Naaaahhh....) 7. I do not blame my parents for this. Once, at a parent-teacher conference, the teacher told me my little boy was "spacey." We ALL are, I told her. The whole fan damily is spacey. She thought I was kidding. I wasn't. 8. I used to travel with a theater reperatory company. My parents weren't happy about this. 9. My mother was afraid that I would run off and paint flowers on my cheeks and live in a commune, and grow vegetables. I once smoked pot. ONE TIME. 10. I don't drink or smoke. (Or swear, much. Well, I drink milk, and water, and orange juice, and stuff. Cocoa. I love Pepsi.) 11. Most of my friends are invisible. 12. I am a poet and a writer. All of my writing on these pages is copyrighted. Borrowing (without acknowledgment) is a sin.