In 1983, after years of walking with a sound imprinted on my mind, a sound that only I heard, I wrote this poem.

Again, the clanking of the steel clasp against its brace, beating on it, over and over. With every step my left leg took, my brace buckle banging against the steel rang in my mind. I wished the sound would disappear. But it wouldn’t. With each step, it went off, loud as a siren, triggering this signal in my mind, an imprint.

Every time I took a step with my left foot, a syncopated beat went off, and I wished it weren’t mine. I wished it would cease or fade into the distance. But it was mine, even after all the years of hard work, therapy, and dance.

In my mind, I hid, running for cover, behind the birch tree. But its branches were unable to support me. Delicate, like me, it desperately needed its own special care to breathe and grow.

On a cul-de-sac, where I used to live in L.A., in a beautiful location on a street that is now exclusively for the rich, stood a brick home built in the 1950s. I stood in awe before it. Above the flowering bushes, a silver birch towered. I couldn’t keep my eyes off it, but one of its limbs drooped, wilted and weak. How could the owners not care for it? Something connected within me.

I listened—closely. Again, I heard my own syncopated rhythm—my leg and the way I was. Almost falling to the ground, the birch needed its own support. It didn’t get enough water or care to stand in the hot California sun. But it helped me recognize that I needed to love and care for myself as well as nature’s plants, even more than I already did. It taught me to stay strong in adversity and keep my smile, no matter what. Because if I smiled, my heart would stay strong and keep smiling, too.

So I yielded to my heart and accepted—loving my leg and myself unconditionally.

Silver Birch

As I walked down the winding path,
I limped like a cat with a wounded paw.
I listened,
And the only sound I heard
Was a didactic hand clap, clapping
In a syncopated rhythm.

Noticing this,
I ran to hide under a silver birch,
But it was thin and its leaves
Unstable as my imperfect paw.

Wanting and waiting to cover its bare trunk,
I took another step.
I saw a trembling branch
Unable to accept its own problem,

Its leaves fallen to the ground,
Powerless to raise itself up again;
Desiring only
The lessons, which were never learned.