Listening to the Sea Shell
I.
One day I stood up
and could barely stand,
the carpet shifted like a rolling ship,
this seemed to pass,
but later in a crowded room,
I found I could not hear.
By morning, all was worse,
dizzy, nauseous, sweating,
hearing a rush of air instead of sounds,
like holding a sea shell to each ear.
For my life’s first time, I drew in breath
and thought that I would die.
Let me pause here in this account
and say, in truth, it didn’t seem the worst thing,
I saw, in that moment, head against my pillow,
Anne mobilizing to get me help,
that I was ready—
I had loved and been loved,
I had worked and been rewarded,
raised two beautiful daughters
whose souls ennobled the Earth,
I had walked the artic tundra,
had trekked the Milford Track.
Bizarrely, I shuffled all these thoughts,
laying out the face cards
on the table of my life,
as the room spun,
the air pressed both my ears,
I looked at what I had,
and it seemed to me, enough.
II.
Well, I didn’t die,
no heart attack,
no stroke that they could trace,
the sudden loss of hearing in one ear –
no easy explanation - a virus, perhaps
“Idiopathic” was the diagnosis,
which means they have no idea.
The internet filled in,
happens to 1 in 6000,
50/50 chance of recovery,
flood the ear with steroids,
reduce the inflammation,
let the hair cells breathe again.
All tried, no dice,
I had joined the fifty
That makes the other half
sing praise for minor miracles.
III.
But you know what,
it’s not as hard as you think,
one good ear goes far,
keep people on my right side,
stay quiet in crowded rooms,
closed captions for T.V.,
watch faces closely,
relish silent places.
Then there’s tinnitus,
not a ringing, not a buzzing,
but that persisting rush.
How best to tell you what it’s like?
Imagine a hotel fan
venting hot or cold,
or fluorescent lights’ incessant hum
over an empty schoolroom desk.
The trick is not to think of it,
which after practicing for years,
I’m pretty damn good at,
but like anything worth doing,
it takes energy and effort,
meaning by day’s end,
I’m just a bit more spent.
IV.
Death entered me that day
and has not left, it lives
(if I can put it that way)
in my left ear’s empty hiss,
as if one side of me
has traveled to oblivion and stayed.
Do I mind?
Madeleine Albright once said,
The act of striving is in itself
the only way to keep faith with life.
Yes, but this endless quietude,
this void of voiceless space,
lets me know that death
is my certain partner,
as real as the first pink light of dawn,
as Anne’s rhythmic breathing in bed beside me,
as my stubbled face staring from the mirror—
all are part of the whole—
with each breath, we both gain and lose,
With all due respect to Madeleine Albright,
faith in life is striving,
but also giving in.
V.
Help us, O Holy One,
as we do our best to listen,
to follow a forgiving path,
guide us both to love
and to accept the loss
of what we love,
help us to strive,
and to see the limits of our striving,
help us to move forward,
and help us learn to rest,
until on a final day
when we hear nothing at all,
it may be said
that our memory was blessed.
Published in Medical Literary Messenger, Winter 2023
Broken Ladders
A tzadik says that God exists
in this—
ladders from heaven lowered by angels
and humans who leap toward the sky;
at the last rung,
where the final angel hovers,
where human hands arc in air,
in this gap is God.
But ladders break and angels fall
and human legs can leap so long,
and then no more.
Then those of us,
whose lives are thick with loss
(which is really all of us),
must grasp, what next?
In our asking, if we listen,
we hear the angels’ work song,
the hammers drumming,
the saws’ high note,
soon if we look up,
we see above our heads,
a hand unfurling toward us,
delicate, small, almost human,
and we leap and leap again.
To appear in In Common Things (in press), Shanti Arts Publishing Co.