A Study in Tinnitus

by Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg

How long have I been in this cave of my own brain? 
Did I know years ago that it was its own cocoon, 
dancing bears light on their feet and twirlable? 
It’s relatively safe here as long as there’s music 
whiting out the yawning buzz of what’s outside. 

Sound lives underneath so many blankets 
of humming molecules expanding like exhalations 
or collapsing supercells into quiet rain. 

The mind zings and ponders in wave and particle,
its inside-out more like the outside-in than I knew. 
Its steady drone multiplies swirl around swirl 
from where it all starts in the conch shell of the ear 
longing so much to hear the world that it constantly 
fiddles with the dial to find the right frequency. 

But behold! There are chickadees roosting in the tree 
of my central cortex, puffed out cardinals alighting 
on ice-covered branches, waiting to fly right out 
of their coats of sound to swim the air with all the others.