Co now, touch
the rocks.
0
bend down and kiss each sacred
stone. Become tlte daugltter
or sweet
SO/1
if
the Planet by embracing your true tuif.
TIlen study the Myths.
...
Franz spotted
Winfred making sketches
on a cheap legal pad in his clipboard. He strolled down the aisle
as he lectured to the few students, hoping to catch
sidelong glimpse of Win's pencilled jottings: no notes , he observed
at once, but pictures-drafts
in minute scale that caught
the true gist
of Franz's verbal depictions of those remote
caves and volcanic rock piles
which gave life
to Bonaire's rich folklore. Other drawings
portrayed the myths themselves:
pencil lines
and crosshatched woven
shapes on the page captured the tales as quickly as mentor Franz
could utter them. Perhaps Winfred knew no language
but the vocabulary of pictures: luminous portraits like Medieval
Exemplums. And how, he wondered,
had Winfred ever
cOllie by
such a gift?
When he put the question to him, he found
the artist oddly staring
upon his lips-
reading, reading, and Franz knew in a flash
this man must be deaf.
N ever before
had the Museum Director
spoken with
TI-Ie Deaf,
much less an earless druggie ex-con artist
of seventeen-thin and malnourished ... But they hit
