Michael Shepherd - ! On His Deafness

'Speak up - no need to shout -I'm not THAT deaf! '
- do I have real reason to complain,
if years of partial listening have brought
now partial hearing in their fateful train?

O Milton - isn't it curious: the blind
evoke our instant feelings of compassion -
while deafness calls some idiot state to mind,
evoking, far from pity - irritation?

Those saintly mystics would just praise their God
that He, to speed their simple saintliness,
brings outer deafness so that inner Word
in cloistered silence, bring a greater bliss...

So may I bear affliction in good part
and hope to hear the louder in the heart.

Michael Shepherd

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/on-his-deafness/