Words Without Words

He wore a perfect blindfold-- a bleak mask
For an elected blindness not to see
A thing, or any one, including their
Words to read that could be misleading him.
Words can deceive, even start bloody wars.
He began scrubbing his memory of language--
Thought symbols he used to speak, hear, read
And write…they only feed on themselves
Like cannibals hungry for glib answers
From his gut, twisted by feckless questions.
Now he hears language sounds that mean nothing,
Like the sharp commands heard by wild dogs
Unleashed by scarecrows that they ignore.
He hears rushes of the wind, cicadas,
Thunder, and waves repeating restful
Endings upon sandy shores, music heard--
Unspoken things like that, unwritten, move
On, to forget without traces so he’ll be ready
To hear wondrous things as they are just born.
He might hear tandem footsteps on the sand,
On grass, moving closer, moving away…
Stopping, silence-- a real moment simmers…
He listens as the quiet of someone there
Brings their world so near to him without a word.
He feels her breathe without symbolic clutter. 
He learns to know her, who she really is.
Maybe now he’ll take the mask from his eyes.
~Dr.M