Recently, I have had the privilege of watching the New Barn donkeys from a live cam test site. Each day I find them a delight and I am (as you already know) fascinated by ears! So here is my attempt (with artistic license) at what I hear those ears saying. I have also observed Jake's ears well and those of a new working guard donkey at a neighboring farm. I usually get a "wobble" and "back" shake in greeting! I also know there are deaf donkeys at the Sanctuary farms, whose language of silence is ever poignant to me. My mother cannot hear, though I know she would love a donkey's bray - and she would like this poem. With fond memories...
Ear Speak (or) Lost Road Found, to Listening
What language lost through many years
Of never hearing a Donkey's ears?
Watching them close they brush the air
And paint a bounteous picture there.
They wiggle and wobble
Salute and lay flat,
As their ear speak continues
Towards the hay and the grass.
We should be listening
Ever to the language of ears
Transporting ourselves through Donkey's years.
They have a life of their own
Those ears as themselves,
But yet they hold Donkey values
And manners on them.
I watch with great care
Those ears pushing and pulling the air
Listening to ear enchantment,
They invite my soul to share.
I'll never be alone with so talkative a crowd
I join in with my silence
And only a touch, not so loud.
Soft as a whisper is their fur
That they comfort all fears
We should reflect to the future
Written by a Donkey's ears.
And then we'll see goodness
And hope that wherever we go,
We'll live listening like a Donkey
Finding only ourselves.