In My Near-Deaf Father’s Dreams
he could hear people clacking like adding machines,
a long roll of numbers never adding up.
Sound was whiteout when snow obliterates a road,
or chattering of locusts after their twelve-year emergence.
He kept searching for one sound
among a blizzard of silence. One noise shattering
limited possibilities. He did the best he could
with a hearing aid failing him miserably.
If he heard God’s voice, would it be a bluejay,
or a column of Roman numerals, or first snow
and the way it’s always soundless and soulless?
Dreams tell us truth or fears, but we never listen
or forget them, or vowels linger
the way a bluejay lands and folds its wings,
or sound vanishes into a crowd of unrelenting voices.
I speak for the hearing impaired.
I too, lose my hearing.
I can’t say that listening closer or harder helps.
It doesn’t.
It just exposes me to this harsh reality:
I can’t hear you the way I want to.
And all of us deserves to be heard. Even my father,
who never knew what I sounded like,
or if words were merely patterns of dreams.
*
Martin Willitts Jr is a retired Librarian that trained Librarians for New York State Public Libraries. He lives in Syracuse, New York. He is an editor for Comstock Review, and he is the judge for the New York State Fair Poetry Competition. He won 2014 Dylan Thomas International Poetry Contest; Stephen A. DiBiase Poetry Prize, 2018; Editor’s Choice, Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, December 2020; 17th Annual Sejong Writing Competition, 2022; and the 2025 Silent River Poetry Prize. His 27 full-length collections include the National Ecological Award winner for “Searching for What You Cannot See” (Hiraeth Press, 2013) and the Blue Light Award 2019, “The Temporary World”. His recent books are “Ethereal Flowers” (Shanti Arts Press, 2023); “Rain Followed Me Home” (Glass Lyre Press, 2023); “Leaving Nothing Behind” (Fernwood Press, 2023); “The Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji” (Shanti Arts Press, 2024); “All Beautiful Things Need Not Fly” (Silver Bowl Press, 2024); “Martin Willitts Jr: Selected Poems” (FutureCycle Press, 2024); “Love Never Cools When It Is Hot” (Red Wolf Editions, 2025). Forthcoming books include 2025 Silent River Poetry Prize, “One Thousand Origami Paper Cranes Fly Away in Search of Peace;” “Bone Chills and Arpeggios” (Main Street Press, 2026), “Sounds I Cannot Hear Clearly Anymore Add Up to the Sum of Silence” (Bainbridge Island Press, 2026).
