By Dawn Doig

People don’t seem to understand the damage they’ll incur
The way that birds’ songs, music, voices, all become a blur -
When the ears are not protected from loud music, shotgun blasts;
The birdsong they heard yesterday may have been their last...

The problem is maybe ignorance, lack of info about the ear
And how its “innards” function when it’s enabling us to hear.
The inner ear is lined with hair cells that when healthy will respond
To incoming sound energy from the ear canal and beyond.

Some hair cells dance to drum beats, some dance to jingling bells,
But regardless of the dance they do, they know their dances well.
The mighty “Endo” (Endolymph) taught them all from the very start
To learn the dance for hearing’s sake; to learn it all by heart.

Endolymph is a fluid that courses through the inner ear
And when Endo starts to move too fast, the hair cells cringe with fear -
Fear of death impending if Endo moves too fast
For hair cells fall like blades of grass as Endo rages past.

What causes Endo’s rages? - for a warning’s never there
And the hair cells least expecting are the ones who never fare.
Amidst a dance of merriment, the rage takes them by surprise
And one by one the hair cells die before the others’ eyes.

One day a shotgun blast went off and downed a startled moose
Another day another blast downed an unsuspecting goose.
Both moments enraged Endo, who pounded in his fury
And lunged upon some hair cells who would otherwise be merry.

The dance to birds’ songs dwindled first as yet another hair cell died;
The remainder knew their fate too well and curled up and cried -
They wept for all their comrades who had lost their lives in vain,
If only muffs or earplugs were worn, they would not have such pain.

They had to strain for spoken words, some still tried to dance,
But numbers now as they were, the hair cells didn’t have a chance.
How hard they tried to make new sounds as loud and clear as before,
But with their numbers now so low, they couldn’t do it anymore.

Farm machinery, music blaring at volumes much too high,
Snowmobiling, off-roading - they all make hair cells die.
Why risk the chance of losing a hair cell dance or two?
Wear ear protection and smother Endo’s rage -

THE DECISION’S UP TO YOU!!

Dawn Diog is a clinical audiologist. Originally from Victoria, British Columbia, Canada,, she resides in Cameroon, West Africa where she is the English Language Learners (ELL) coordinator for the American School of Yaounde.