I first heard this poem in a penny Marshal movie called the awakenings, starring De niro and Robin Williams. Williams' narration of the poem, interspersed with the brilliant visuals of the Panther in the Bronx zoo, moved me like it has moved a million before. I was reminded of the othe movie I saw starring Javier Bardem called Mar Adentro or translated in English as 'The Sea inside', where a quadriplegic sits and contemplates dying all day.
Anyways, Without further ado, here is the poem for you:
Tha Panther
From seeing the bars, his seeing is so exhausted
that it no longer holds anything anymore.
To him the world is bars, a hundred thousand
bars, and behind the bars, nothing.
The lithe swinging of that rhythmical easy stride
which circles down to the tiniest hub
is like a dance of energy around a point
in which a great will stands stunned and numb.
Only at times the curtains of the pupil rise
without a sound . . . then a shape enters,
slips though the tightened silence of the shoulders,
reaches the heart, and dies.
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