Loss<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Remember the time you announced
\nthat you were no longer going to clean
\nyour ear wax out, that you were, at last,
\ngoing to trust your ears to do their job
\nthe way the Good Lord had intended,
\nwhich would have been easier to commit to
\nhad you actually believed in God,
\nthough sometimes grand gestures require
\ngrand sacrifices, in this case your atheism,
\nwhich you sort of just wiped off yourself
\nwith a mental swab and tossed out
\nthe window of our conversation? At first
\nnothing was different. You were the same guy
\nwith the same ears, a little mashed maybe,
\nbut well formed, and the same hearing,
\nfond of the black-capped chickadees outside
\nour window in the early morning and the children
\ndoing their Uncle Murray voices as they ran
\nthrough the sprinkler and the obscure radio shows
\nyou found on the dial late at night by yourself.<\/p>\n
………………….<\/span>But gradually, by spring maybe, Emily Bedard\u00a0<\/a>writes poetry, fiction, and collaborative screenplays with her sister, Bridget Bedard. She has an M.F.A. from the University of Montana and lives in Seattle, where she teaches for Richard Hugo House, Seattle Arts & Lectures,<\/a> and the Henry Art Gallery. Currently, Bedard is working on a new collection of poems, a novel, and a group of memoir-ish essays, all at the same time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Loss Remember the time you announced that you were no longer going to clean your ear wax out, that you were, at last, going to trust your ears to do their job the way the Good Lord had intended, … Continue reading
\nthe accumulation had begun to take hold
\nand you missed little snippets of conversation
\naround you, you looked in wonder at the patterns
\nof intricate feathers on the tiny gray wings,
\nundistracted by song. You had a look of half
\namazement and half despair as the burbling,
\nclicking, rustling world fell away behind the wall
\nof silent wax in your head. We spoke to your face,
\nwe raised our voices, but you just stared
\nat our mouths opening and shutting like fishes
\ngulping the wrong kind of air. And when
\nthe muffling was complete, when your two ears
\nlike tender contoured shells on the sides of your head
\nhad fully erected a fortress of quiet, you just swam
\nalone in there in circles, listening to
\nthe whispers of a God you had never believed in.<\/p>\n
\n <\/p>\n