‘Speak up! No need to shout – I’m not t h a t deaf..! ’ <br />-do I have any real right to complain <br />if years of partial listening have brought <br />now partial hearing in their fateful train? <br /> <br />O Milton – isn’t it curious: the blind <br />evoke our instant feelings of compassion; <br />while deafness calls some idiot state to mind – <br />evoking, far from pity – irritation! <br /> <br />Those saintly mystics would just praise their God <br />that He, to speed their simple saintliness, <br />brings outer deafness, so that inner Word <br />in cloistered silence brings a greater bliss.. <br /> <br />So may I bear affliction in good part: <br />and hear a greater, louder word in heart.<br /><br />Michael Shepherd<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sonnet-on-his-deafness/
