Toward My First Hearing Aid

National Catholic Reporter, Oct 13, 2000 by Kilian McDonnell

   Must you mumble your words,
   slur your vowels,
   garble consonants,
   mute the labials,
   soften the sibilants,
   rush to the end,
   drop the last syllable?
   And of late, you whisper
   velvety conspiracies
   against me.

   Must I teach phonetics again?
   Why don't you speak precisely?
   Like Professor Higgins,
   I am a reasonable sort of a man,
   bearing malice toward none,
   if only dipthongs were purer,
   phrases not swallowed,
   if sounds and lives did not decay.
   Must you mumble your words?

Fr. Kilian McDonnell, OSB Collegeville, Minn.