10/02/2025
If the ears of an elephant were worn by man
If the ears of an elephant were worn by man,
then perhaps he would no longer rush to speak,
but pause in the wide silence,
catching the tremor of a leaf before it falls,
the ache hidden behind a child’s laughter,
the grief carried in a stranger’s smile.
With such vast sails to catch the winds of sound,
he might finally hear what the rivers whisper,
what the stars murmur in their long patience,
what his own heart has been crying for years
but was drowned by the noise of his tongue.
If the ears of an elephant were worn by man,
then wisdom would not be locked in books,
but gathered in the spaces between breaths,
and compassion would become as natural
as the rising of the dawn.
Perhaps then,
the world would not be broken by deafness
to one another’s pain.
Perhaps then,
he would know the power of listening—
and discover that in listening,
he has already begun to heal.
-Kendra Cross