Just because I cannot hear
Does not mean I have no voice.
My hands are my words
Flowing out like rivers
And these eyes,
They see
Though you look at me as a man blind—
Blind enough to see
Your hands in motion
Signing off my rights
Signing off the hope
That brought me here today.
I am not silent
But you silence me
Bury me in paperwork
Another numerical nonentity
Less a face than a dollar sign—
Black ink rain down
And you break my world
With a pen for a sword—
How can you look at us this way
Hear our pleas, hear our cries
And still sit, as statues
Unmoved, unbroken
Drowning us
With care.
This Wednesday’s post has several dedications. It is first and foremost dedicated to the Deaf Education and American Sign Language students at MSU, who this year, as part of budget cuts, had their programs completely cut from the academia here. I also dedicate this to the deaf community at large, who all have felt the pain of this loss. Eastern Michigan University is the only other University in Michigan to offer such programs to the community.
As usual, it is also for the wonderful One Shot Poetry Wednesdays–once you’ve had a look, check out some of the other One Shot Poets as well– they’re a skilled bunch of poets, looking to form a community and support one another. Enjoy!
Photos by myself, Chris Galford, from the final MSU Board of Trustees meeting last school year. The alphabet presented below is the alphabet of American Sign Language–a language certain board members previously claimed was “not a real language.”
The Waking Den 