by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate, 2004-2006
I’ve gotten to the age at which I am starting to strain to hear things, but I am glad to have gotten to that age, all the same. Here’s a fine poem by Miller Williams of Arkansas that gets inside a person who is losing her hearing.
Going Deaf
No matter how she tilts her head to hear
she sees the irritation in their eyes.
She knows how they can read a small rejection,
a little judgment, in every What did you say?
So now she doesn’t say What? or Come again?
She lets the syllables settle, hoping they form
some sort of shape that she might recognize.
When they don’t, she smiles with everyone else,
and then whoever was talking turns to her
and says, “Break wooden coffee, don’t you know?”
She pulls all she can focus into the face
to know if she ought to nod or shake her head.
In that long space her brain talks to itself.
The person may turn away as an act of mercy,
leaving her there in a room full of understanding
with nothing to cover her, neither sound nor silence.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Stop me if you’ve heard this one.
Honey, Can You Hear Me
by James Tate
Alison stared into the mirror and combed her hair. How
beautiful she was! “I look awful,” she said. I bent down and
tied my shoe and hit my head on the coffee table on the way up.
“Ouch,” I said. “What did you say, honey?” she said. “I said
we ought to buy a new couch,” I said. “I thought we just bought
one,” she said. “We could buy another one so we’d have a backup
in case anything happens to this one,” I said. She didn’t answer
me, but continued to brush her hair. I stared down at my shoes
and said, “Something is so wrong there.” “What did you say, honey?”
she said. I said, “It will be wonderful to be there tonight.”
“Where’s that, honey?” she said. “Wherever it is that we’re going,”
I said. “We’re not going anywhere,” she said. “I meant here. It
will be wonderful to be here tonight,” I said. “A little romantic
night at home,” she said. What did she mean by “nomadic”? A little
nomadic night at home. There were times when I worried about
Alison. She hovered right on the borderline, about to cross over into
her own private realm, where nothing she sees or hears corresponds
to anything in the known world. I live with this fear daily. My
shoes are on the wrong feet, or so it seems to me now.
“Honey, Can You Hear Me” by James Tate, from The Ghost Soldiers. © Harper Collins, 2008. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)
Ted Kooser continues to serve as a Poet Laureate with his artful choice of poems that are uniquely American in their voice and subject matter. This poem in particular could be a description of my aging mother, and now, of me as well. I’m training a Havanoodle puppy, and one of the commands is “Look at me.” I’m starting to use the same command with my husband, who sometimes walks down the hallway — away from me — talking.