For Satish Gujral

The deaf artist
who has never heard a human voice
articulate the language
of his choice
declares with passion
his drunken creed.
I mean no disrespect.
What does one do
whose loss
and liability
loom as large as this?

Deaf artists all,
all of us who martyr the meaning
in the flux
to lonely
and heated visions whoring
after truth.
Mea culpa. Punish me.
It is the task
of love
and imagination
to hear what can't be heard
when everybody speaks.

From "Hymns in Darkness" - Nissim Ezekiel, Collected Poems
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