:Forest Folk

The Crippled Bird

I

And Zaneta heard the wind shifting outside

the car window, then I parked the car

We stood outside the car and talked

as if it was a birdcage.

She was a crippled bird, slow she

was to learn, as many heard, as if her mind

Was in a box utterly locked

for her mind skipped, like lifting fog,

Slow to gradually, went her childhood

she,

In her fading voice: “O why has God

made me like this?”

(I listened carefully)

“They all laugh at me, Sue, Sarah, Billy too.”

“Zaneta, Zaneta!”

Said Zaneta, her hands shaking like a thin

paper-wall, next to a moving train

(kids can be cruel).

It was like an earthquake, inside my head

“Zaneta” I said…

She moaned to see what I would say,

I felt the earth had swallowed

My little girl up. “I don’t know why God

makes things the way He does,

(Zaneta was in a trance), perhaps it’s

According to His plan, His habit,”

I said, “perhaps He has greater visions

for you, but it was not by chance.

It will have to be you who will rise above

the melted candle.”

II

O swiftness was not her beauty,

But breath of air, and bravery was in her veins.

The doctors all said she’d never read

Quite opposite, she was like granite.

She was in the dark, and chose the light

And day after day, year after year

She read bible verse, syllable by syllable

Stanza by stanza, cradled in her hands

The scriptures (hard to understand)

But she read them, found hope, and

Slid on passion to learn, all because

Of one day of counsel.

From half-scornful pity to its burial.

III

She as one, had rebuilt the bridges

The one her shame, in silent secrecy, could

Never meet in the light of a room

Now it slipped through the room of night

And wrecked everything in sight, like a storm

And some how landed on the fifth-moon,

The one only in dreams.

IV

She kept secret her perplexed fear,

Of being backwards (slow) and no

I mean no one knew the difference.

No longer a prisoner with an inescapable fate,

The root in her body was nourished:

Death had entered and left.

#1193 [2/9/2006]

Notes: this is a hard and emotional poem to read. Not hard in reading, but hard in being able to read it emotionally. It is funny, children that is: Dennis has a son who is (as he says)’Too smart for his own good,’ one that is very slow, his daughter, and one who he claims is average, like him. And he could never put these words to the poem in their proper place about his daughter who now is 27-years old, although he had the words, he did not have the style it needed. Now he does. I do believe Robinson Jeffers helped him out with the style. It is a lovely poem. Rosa

In Spanish
Translated by Nancy Penaloza

El Pajarillo Lisiado

I

Y Zaneta escuch el cambio del viento afuera

De la ventana del coche, luego yo lo estacioné
Nos paramos fuera del coche y hablamos

Como si esta fuera una jaula.
Ella era como una pajarita lisiada, lenta para

Aprender era ella, como muchos escucharon,- como si su mente
Estuviera en una caja-completamente bloqueada

Para su mente pasada por alto, como niebla disipada,
Lenta poco a poco, fue a su niez

Ella,
En su voz atenuada; “Oh, porque Dios

Me hizo como esto”?

(Yo escuche cuidadosamente)

“Todos ellos se ren de mi, Sue, Sarah, Billy también”.

“Zaneta, Zaneta”!.
Dijo Zaneta, sus manos sacudiendo como una delgada

Pared de papel, cerca de un tren en movimiento
(Los muchachos pueden ser crueles).

Fue como un terremoto, dentro de mi cabeza

“Zaneta” yo dije..
Ella gema para ver lo que yo dira,

Yo sent que la tierra se haba tragado
A mi pequea nia. “yo no se porque Dios

Hace las cosas de la forma que lo hace”,
(Zaneta estaba en un trance), talvez esto es
De acuerdo a su plan, su habito”,

Dije, “Talvez él tiene las visones mas grandes

Para ti, pero no era por casualidad.
Tendras que ser tu quien se eleve sobre

La vela fundida”.

II

Oh, La rapidez no era su belleza,
Pero el aliento de aire, y el valor estaban en sus venas.

Todos los médicos dijeron que ella nunca leera
Todo lo contrario, ella estaba como el granito.
Ella estaba en la oscuridad, y escogi la luz
Y da tras da, ao tras ao

Ella ley versos de la Biblia, slaba por slaba

Estancia por estancia, sosteniendo en sus manos

Las escrituras (Difcil para entender)

Pero ella los ley, encontr la esperanza, y

Desliz en la pasin para aprender, todo a causa
De un da del consejo.
De la compasin medio-despreciativo para su entierro.

III

Ella como uno, haba reedificado los puentes
El nico su vergenza, en silencioso secreto, jams
Encontrara en la luz de un cuarto
Ahora esto resbal por el cuarto de noche
Y destruy todo a la vista, como una tempestad
Y algo como aterrizado sobre la quinta-luna,
El nico slo en sueos.

IV

Ella mantuvo secreto su temor perplejo,
De ser al revés (floja) y ninguno
Yo creo que nadie supo la diferencia.
No ms que un preso con un destino ineludible,
La raz en su cuerpo estaba alimentada:

La Muerte haba entrado y sali.

#1193 [2/9/2006]

See Dennis’ web site: http://dennissiluk.tripod.com see his new poetry books at http://www.bn.com [Poems out of Minnesota]or http://www.amazon.com