VIII
EARS

Your long hair hides your ears,           Psalm 92:9.
like the mystery that hides your Father.
Our faith depends, not on what He tells us,
but on whether He hears us. How can the Father
be deaf, if He is not silent? Since the heavens           Psalm 18:2.
have told us of God’s Glory in the highest,
can they not hear the prayers that ascend
from our mouths? Why does the sea moan
plaintively, and why do birds sing so sweetly,
if the blue vault of the sky, which is the ear
of your Father, is deaf to our cries
of anguish? You hide your Nazarene
ears underneath an innocent veil,
but they still hear us. They are two roses
that open under the shower of the fleeting
lament for our nothingness; they are two sea
shells that collect the sobs coming from
the waves of tears on the high seas
of our night, that hear our intense longing
to live forever. The Word, precisely
because of what it is, cannot be deaf;
it lives from them, and You, from prayers!