August 16: Nephew, Deafness, New Poem

I found out last night that my new nephew, who was born last month, is deaf in his left ear.  Somehow, the doctors have performed some kind of hearing test and determined that he cannot hear anything in that ear.  His mother also can't hear out of her left ear, but it's simply coincidence that he is similarly challenged.

He is a beautiful little baby, still red and soft as flower petals.  He will never know that he is challenged in any way when it comes to hearing.  His mom didn't know she was deaf until she was in high school.  It's all about compensation.  The brain adjusts for the sense that is lacking.  He will be fine.  I know this.  And he is perfect.  All babies are.

Today, Saint Marty deidcates his poem to his nephew.

Anatomy of Sound

I press my lips to his helix, antihelix, scaphoid fossa.  Whisper into his cymba conchae, tell him he's perfect.  He gazes at me, as if I've just poured gold into his auditory canal, gilded his tympanic membrane and cavity.  He can't hear me.  I know.  The doctors have snapped their fingers, probed his one-month-old ossicles, found only silence.  Now, he sits in the curve of my arm, opens his mouth, closes it.  Remains mute.  His tongue, small as a minnow, swims with hunger, some unspoken need.  He can cry.  Scream.  Fill his lungs with air, rattle cochlea.  But tonight, he is all potential.  The possibility of syllable.  Word.  Line.  Poem.  It sits deep in his head.  Craving to be heard.