Eritrean Deafness Awareness

By Haile Bokure

One of the main goals of the Eritrean Hearing and Vision Inc. (EHVI),  is to instill "Deafness Awareness"  in our society in the making under on-going millennium program. This poem conveys a deep message of the deaf experience in the dead of the night that we always take for granted. For some of us, it is silent night and holy night, but for the hearing impaired,  it is like that dark and cold prison cell till aurora (sunrise). Naturally, deaf people are visually-oriented, and thus light may be attributed to sound stimuli of hearing world.

The Deaf Lover

Oh darling!

It is so dark!

Now, without moon... 

A queen of the night 

We can't talk nor sign

Till the radiant light

Of the day break emerges

Adorned by the fragrance

Of delicate petals

That sleep all night

In their comfy buds

While the little fairies

All the night away

Round and round

Happily dance

Before vanishing

Into the woods

At the sudden chirp

Of hungry birds

A top the tree

That neither the deaf

Nor hearing can see.

-Haile

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