Curtis Robbins

DEAF MAN HOWLS

"Long, loud, and cantankerous is the howl raised by the deaf-mute! It has to be if he wishes to be heard and listened to."
         The Deaf-Mute Howls, A. Ballin (1930)

The universality of ASL was never the remedy –
diversity among us
made divisions
in our own crumbled Babel.

We've estranged ourselves
from the cantankerous world
and muted our own silence.

Still we howl.

The remedy was never
an ultimate solution –
laws were made
like rules in the institute –
to make us
deviously divisive
and indecisive.

We've panned out
for escapades
to avoid taxing volitions
for the better.

Still we howl.

The solution has always
been within us
but its invincibility
left us mucking
in perpetuating battles.

We've gagged and screamed
at each other
for the righteous claim
to glory but no one
stakes the claim to divinity.

Still we howl.

Tonight as in every bitter sunset
with the hazy full moon
there still will be more
Deaf Man howls.

We've done it so many times
before and still, there won't be
anyone there for the chase.

Still we howl.

Curtis Robbins was born in New York City and is a graduate of Gallaudet University where he taught for 10 years. He has taught - among other things - American Sign Language and Deaf Culture for 40 years prior to his retirement in 2007. Robbins has published several of his poems in The Tactile Mind, a publication focused on Deaf authors. His other poems also are found in three anthologies of works by Deaf writers and poets, No Walls of Stone (1982), The Deaf Way II Anthology (2002), and Deaf American Poetry (2009).