AUTISM: A POEM

. . . . . XXVI. Solstice Snowfall

. . . . . 1

Another lake effect storm forms
. . . . . over the shore just north of here

on the shortest day of the year.
. . . . . A low late-day sun yet slowly sets

beyond a snow bank, although
. . . . . still frozen in place for a moment.


. . . . . 2

Behind empty nests, abandoned
. . . . . by birds or squirrels, now caught

in shadow like knots of darkness,
. . . . . we see—between black wet-bark

branches of leafless trees—streams
. . . . . of chimney smoke rise ever higher.


. . . . . 3

Alex smiles, sliding a full shovel
. . . . . along the driveway. He repeatedly

scrapes its steel blade down our
. . . . . steep blacktop, so pleased to be

easing a fresh layer once more
. . . . . toward the corner border of road.


. . . . . 4

Again, he shows his persistence.
. . . . . Even knowing everything taken

away will be replaced by morning,
. . . . . he continues until a path is clear,

pushing each load to where all
. . . . . the old snow has hardened to ice.

AUTISM: A POEM

. . . . . XXV. Afternoon Assessment

Shadows shortening toward noon,
. . . . . those dark partners accompanying

everything all morning begin to slip
. . . . . away. A spot of sunlight yet flutters

inside the blank frame of an upstairs
. . . . . window, flickering like an isolated

star in a night sky. V-shapes of geese
. . . . . moved on one month ago, drifting

south over ripples of river current
. . . . . glistening under sunshine, leaving

behind only a flat slab of skyline.
. . . . . Bare limbs of backyard beech trees

sway in a chilly breeze. The brown
. . . . . stalks of garden flowers that once

bowed, weighed down by summer
. . . . . growth, are now empty, stand stark,

straight and stiff amid this early
. . . . . winter landscape. By the time those

outlines of afternoon’s silhouettes
. . . . . begin to lengthen across a tawny

stretch of lawn beneath the three
. . . . . elms bending alongside our house,

where my wife and son are still
. . . . . waiting for me to drive with them,

we will know a diagnosis, terms
. . . . . we had hoped to avoid learning,

complex sentences with words
. . . . . strung together like beads threaded

into an old ornamental bracelet
. . . . . worn as a reminder of the missing.

AUTISM: A POEM

. . . . .XXIV. Morning Walk in Late Autumn

. . . . . 1

Under thin light of late autumn sun,
. . . . . brisk winds drag a mixture of brittle

leaves—red, orange, brown, gold—
. . . . . along cold ground around our house

and toss them above the hardened
. . . . . earth in the backyard flower garden,

where we had turned the black soil
. . . . . during spring seeding. Its pine fence

has been weathered gray by decades
. . . . . of days like today, wood splintering

even before the harsh frost in winter,
. . . . . provides another way to measure time.


. . . . . 2

Awakened by a swift shift of winds
. . . . . this morning, we saw first snowflakes

settling among those empty limbs
. . . . . in a row of willows across the road,

filed beside a shallow pond already
. . . . . frozen over even though the winter

season has not yet begun. When we
. . . . . walk toward thicker woods beyond,

chains of footprints remain to track
. . . . . our path. With each word you speak,

your tiny clouds of breath disappear
. . . . . nearly as quickly as they’d appeared.

AUTISM: A POEM

. . . . . XXIII. Wind Currents at Dusk

New gusts rustle through the few
. . . . . trees that edge our backyard fence.

Their thick branches shift slowly
. . . . . in the wind with the strict rhythm

one might find in a chorus line,
. . . . . as though a whole row of dancers

had been choreographed to move
. . . . . in time with the mellow melody

of an orchestra’s tune. A gray
. . . . . haze of chimney smoke unfolds

and gently rolls over the steep
. . . . . slope of our roof. It slips across

the darkening lawn disappearing
. . . . . below, sifted by stippled patterns

of shadows in the trees. My son
. . . . . watches all through his bedroom

window, counts each black leaf,
. . . . . calculates the world around him.

AUTISM: A POEM

. . . . .XXII. Balloon Launch

My wife, my son, and I
. . . . .watch two dozen balloons launched

from the middle of a mud-filled
. . . . .meadow, each one rising like another

colorful sun suddenly added
. . . . .to the wide morning sky, shining

in bright reflection as it drifts
. . . . .into a slant of dawn light, reaches

toward farmland farther east.
. . . . .Every year we come here, hoping

to notice once more how
. . . . .these large objects float so easily

with even the slightest breeze,
. . . . .moving smoothly through the blue

fields above us, now cruising
. . . . .the wind current as quietly as those

final few scraps of clouds
. . . . .forging higher overhead, nothing

more than decorative remnants
. . . . .left over from yesterday’s storm.

AUTISM: A POEM

. . . . . XXI. Insomnia

After a month of drought, the August
. . . . . lawns burnt brown under bright sunlight,

a few weightless clouds now drift by
. . . . . in a late afternoon sky. Already, parched

leaves of our backyard trees have begun
. . . . . to turn; each curls like a crisp bit of paper

placed a little above a flickering candle
. . . . . flame. My son shades his eyes to glimpse

the horizon, as if again awaiting tints
. . . . . he sees every evening hinting at the finish

of one more day. In his mind, Alex is
. . . . . measuring time by charting the sun’s arc,

tracing its rate of descent beyond far
. . . . . lines of black trees, marking this brilliant

vision of backlit landscape to recall all
. . . . . these details in the darkest hours of night,

when he will fear the sounds he hears
. . . . . in dry winds blowing outside his window,

hoping to remember even those distant
. . . . . stones glowing like embers in a dying fire.

AUTISM: A POEM

. . . . . XX. Beneath Leaf Shadow

My son sits on one of the cement
. . . . . benches beneath bulky shadows

of park oaks, again awaits the late
. . . . . flash of sunlight that will angle

below those long lower branches
. . . . . like a white page of stationery

secretly slipped under someone’s
. . . . . shut door. Leaves flutter above

like black moths with each breeze.
. . . . . Alex enjoys the way he seems

to disappear in the darker corridor
. . . . . of shade, as though no one will

know he’s still there, staying safely
. . . . . away from sight like some young

thrush tucked into its nest, just
. . . . . knotted twigs, or as a cold hand

is hidden in the pocket of an old
. . . . . coat, hoping for more warmth.

AUTISM: A POEM

          XIX. On Learning of Our Son's Illness

The only sound we hear is that warm afternoon
          wind still sifting through the long arms of elms

everywhere around us.  We watch as our son
          runs alone across the grass, his figure silhouetted

now against sunshine slowly dying in the sky
          behind him.  Our own shadows are lengthening

along the lawn, drifting like little splotches
          of cloud cover, spotty knots of shade blotting

bits of landscape in that late light—as always,
          eventually seeming to link us with everything

we can see until nightfall once more gathers 
          all together in the false security of its embrace.

Even in such darkness, as the three of us return
          home, fears of what might lie ahead never disappear.

AUTISM: A POEM

. . . . . XVIII. At the Chapel

As late daylight moves through
. . . . . a few stained windowpanes, these walls

take on an appearance of murals,
. . . . . though printed mostly in paler shades

of primary paint. My son slowly
. . . . . guides one hand along the tinted images,

dipping his fingers into that palette
. . . . . of illuminations now brightening white

space before him—as if he is trying
. . . . . to test its temperature or in an attempt

to enter an alternative existence.
. . . . . His wide smile disguises apprehension

when he reaches to touch the green
. . . . . serpent twisting like some vine winding

around the brown bark of a branch
. . . . . toward its ruby fruit. And by the time

Alex grabs at the image—hoping
. . . . . to hold an apple, his whole arm tattooed

with a brilliant glaze—he is sure
. . . . . this world offers more colorful options.

AUTISM: A POEM

. . . . . XVII. Basketball with Alex


. . . . . 1

He dribbles as though with rhythms
. . . . . learned from listening to those older

recordings of mine, the vintage jazz
. . . . . he loves so much. Each time driving

the basket, he even seems to imitate
. . . . . the pulse of remembered downbeats.


. . . . . 2

Counting every bounce, he bounds
. . . . . across half court toward an empty net,

appearing to appreciate reassurance
. . . . . he receives whenever the ball returns,

trusts that way it always snaps back
. . . . . as if never wanting to leave his hand.

AUTISM: A POEM

. . . . . XVI. The Art of Memory

First he lists the digits, numerals
. . . . . tied together in his mind like ivory

beads for keeping count on a rosary.
. . . . . He knows intimately those figures

most cannot fathom, has memorized
. . . . . pi to thousands of places. He claims

he visualizes the numbers printed
. . . . . as columns of cuneiform characters

posed in pictures seen on a tinted
. . . . . screen, perhaps in the way Cezanne

celebrated nature’s abstract gifts
. . . . . by suddenly delivering vivid imagery,

broad lush brush strokes imitating
. . . . . its right angles and the vibrant tones

or those blunt shapes of dull stones,
. . . . . discovering true hues of shrubbery,

finding bright lines of sunshine, light
. . . . . lsliding over slopes of shadowy hills.

AUTISM: A POEM

. . . . . XV. Seeking Inklings in an Old Video

He held mussel shells—indigo blue inside and black
. . . . . on back—or those round pebbles he had

found rolling like dark marbles in the tidewater
. . . . . wash, as if he had a handful of hard candy.

The wind’s speed picked up, the sea shining behind
. . . . . him, each wave displayed like a crinkled

sheet of tinfoil unfurled under that day’s final
. . . . . splay of sunlight. Every one of our son’s

uneasy steps at the ocean’s edge left an impression,
. . . . . still refilling with water—even as I witness

it now, in midwinter three years later. We could
. . . . . not have known then to watch for the few

symptoms we would soon learn to view with fear.
. . . . . Even those little hints we missed, a lack

of balance whenever he would lean to lift another
. . . . . stick of driftwood, as if the shoreline’s

slant had suddenly become too steep, or the tipped
. . . . . head and sideways glance he’d give us,

though we thought he only wanted reassurance,
. . . . . were never seen as dubious sorts of acts

that ought to indicate a reason to have misgivings.
. . . . . But to the two of us, now so suspicious,

feeling guilt, every unsure move that camera caught
. . . . . appears to be uninvestigated evidence left

behind, even in this scene when the tape runs to its end.
. . . . . He sits on the sand, back toward the shore,

counting out his collection of shells in a single file,
. . . . . as if pretending every one of them were part

of some private treasure, the way anyone might
. . . . . arrange family keepsakes, jewels or gems

kept as heirlooms somewhere in a darkened drawer,
. . . . . brought out for comfort in a time of grief.

AUTISM: A POEM

. . . . . XIV. Lake Gulls at Daybreak

Again the daylight begins
. . . . . in stages as a vague sun gives way

to flames rising high behind
. . . . . that drapery of gray sky still shading

a smooth glaze of lake water
. . . . . tinted jade beneath it. A tattered

patch of flat pasture borders
. . . . . this shoreline, an edge of dead grass

aligned alongside the dunes,
. . . . . where white-winged gulls with ringed

bills fly by, lift, hover above
. . . . . in an onshore wind. I watch my son

run through a few shallow
. . . . . pools along the soft slope of beach.

Each time he reaches out
. . . . . toward the birds floating overhead

as if holding a bright new kite
. . . . . with tightening string, feeling every

bob or weave aloft, hoping
. . . . . he might reel one in before we leave.

AUTISM: A POEM

. . . . . XIII. Dark Refuge

My son runs among the thick trees in this wildlife
. . . . . refuge, and I’m amazed at his ability to maneuver

through the narrow gaps—leaping each obstacle
. . . . . in the covered maze, jumping every exposed root

jutting up or fallen branch underfoot—leading
. . . . . me through those limited openings as if he knows

where he is going, even though we have never
. . . . . been here before. He seems unafraid of what lies

ahead. Birds chirp somewhere in the dark snarl
. . . . . of limbs looming above us, then fly away unseen.

By the time we reach a wide clearing, I’m nearly
. . . . . out of breath and in need of rest, but Alex appears

refreshed, ready to begin again. Without a word,
. . . . . he rushes by me, back to that black web of shadow.

AUTISM: A POEM

. . . . . XII. Island Fever

Far from home, my son sleeps
. . . . . off his fever, bedspread kicked

free and knotted at his knees.
. . . . . For more than four hours, I have

listened to his labored breathing,
. . . . . a repeated wheeze kept as steady

as the sloughing of surf foam
. . . . . we have seen slip down shallow

slopes of the beach bordering
. . . . . along this inlet’s curving shore,

knowing how often, looking
. . . . . through his bedroom window,

I would watch a bright moon
. . . . . shed its light over that meadow

spread out across the county
. . . . . road from our house, dividing

nighttime into black and white
. . . . . as those large irregular shadows

of old oaks closer by fan out,
. . . . . form dark islands along the lawn,

places I imagine only the bravest
. . . . . among us aren’t ever afraid to enter.

AUTISM: A POEM

. . . . . XI. Song for One Who Cannot Speak

Another flare of morning light shows
. . . . . over the threshold of low and rolling

hills that lies before us, and even
. . . . . as this early sun, seemingly weightless,

rises into an otherwise empty sky,
. . . . . I wonder why I believe today may

be any different. Last evening
. . . . . as I was writing in my notebook,

I listened to the distant drift of melody
. . . . . lifting from a radio somewhere beyond

this balcony, a song with its music now
. . . . . muffled and lyrics as soft as an intimate

late-night whisper murmured between
. . . . . lovers. Though those words could not

be heard, carried away as easily
. . . . . as autumn leaves in a sea breeze

or those far-off harbor boats
. . . . . that disappear at dusk in a developing

mist, I imagined phrases forming
. . . . . themselves, sentences taking shape—

lots of white space clotted by ink blots
. . . . . of notes and by organized knots of letters,

like lines from lost compositions
. . . . . rediscovered, found inside an old record

album. I pictured these symbols
. . . . . that mimic speech, the way I sometimes

do when I watch your struggle
. . . . . to be heard, mouthing sounds that never

emerge, as instead an absence is further
. . . . . emphasized, only the silence is noted.

Once again, I imagine—if on this day
. . . . . the doctors were proven wrong—how

your voice might imitate that song,
. . . . . and I wonder what you would say.

AUTISM: A POEM

. . . . . X. Night of the Diagnosis

Daylight faded to black hours ago.
. . . . . Now, I notice a single star light

the summer sky the way one silver
. . . . . earring glistens when a woman’s

hand lightly brushes back her hair.
. . . . . In this stillness, I sit and listen

to windless silence while my wife
. . . . . and son sleep, the invisible vines

twisting like twine in the darkened
. . . . . garden, where tomatoes and red

peppers continue their slow growth
. . . . . unseen in an act that constitutes

some secret counter to the chaos
. . . . . we will all witness with sunrise.

AUTISM: A POEM.

. . . . . IX. Uncertainty


. . . . . 1

The late-day rain gives way
. . . . . to a few final lines of sunset

still slipping a bit through
. . . . . low cloud cover. A dark file

of empty boxcars returning
. . . . . from marketplace approaches.


. . . . . 2

While our son watches,
. . . . . outside his bedroom window

each one slowly rolls by,
. . . . . awkwardly swaying as it slides

past the last light showing
. . . . . along a straight edge of horizon.


. . . . . 3

The freight trains’ distant
. . . . . chug and dull thuds always grow

nearby. Though no longer
. . . . . tugging cargo, they strain, stutter,

sound as uncertain as any
. . . . . statement uttered under duress.


. . . . . 4

By midnight, when silence
. . . . . resides here once again, even

those empty cars will be lost.
. . . . . In sleep, all we know disappears

farther back into the tight
. . . . . knot of a moonless night.

AUTISM: A POEM.

. . . . .VIII. Night Terrors

. . . . . 1

Even now as he wakes to see me, knows
. . . . . I have been watching him sleep, he still keeps

close to his side that thick book he’d hidden
. . . . . all night long under his covers, with one nearly

fisted hand holding it so tightly that I might
. . . . . not be able to read the raised and finely-printed

white letters extending like a small animal’s
. . . . . vertebrae along the length of its spine, spelling

out those dry technical title words spread
. . . . . across another of his mother’s medical texts.


. . . . . 2

Each night he reads what he can understand
. . . . . now about how the body’s outward appearance

often deceives, warnings of its weakness
. . . . . remaining unseen like those few signs of life lost

beneath the little lake outside his bedroom
. . . . . window, its still water frozen and snowed over

ever since winter’s first frost. He seems
. . . . . to be seeking some sense of security that might

arise from learning answers to unformed
. . . . . sentences, the questions he is yet unable to ask.

. . . . . 3

The graphics picture all kinds of diseases,
. . . . . and I wonder if these images feed his dreams,

frighten him late at night after the set timer
. . . . . turns off his dresser light or those weak final

beams of moonlight—drifting down cold
. . . . . air currents, sifting through the now bare trees,

falling among the house’s eaves, filtering
. . . . . between curtains in his window—fade away,

whether he believes even shrouds of darkness
. . . . . cannot erase what he’s seen, cannot ease any pain.

AUTISM: A POEM

. . . . . VII. Hyperlexia

My son eyed the large wide print
. . . . . stenciled across an interstate billboard.

At three, he’d already taught himself
. . . . . to read over a year earlier, even before

he could tell anyone how well he knew
. . . . . to spell words we had never heard him

speak. My wife and I were surprised
. . . . . once again by the way he said terms

learned through no method we know—
. . . . . on this day reciting lines of a highway

advertisement shining under bright
. . . . . summer sunlight, its gold and red

lettering—“Family accommodations,
. . . . . adventurous activities, and exciting

attractions ahead”—sending a message
. . . . . to tourists that now seems meant more

to us as a lesson we only discovered
. . . . . somewhere farther down the road.

AUTISM: A POEM

. . . . . VI. Learning Words

On this early December morning, so warm
. . . . . winter appears merely a rumor, my son sits

stiff-backed on a wooden bench, watching
. . . . . above with wonder as he notices the absence

of leaves in the large oak trees around him,
. . . . . although he already has been taught how to live

with loss, to appreciate that which is missing.
. . . . . When he stares down at that dark brown patch

of bare ground where the park’s flower
. . . . . garden had still been bright and full of colors

just a couple of months ago, he repeats
. . . . . those strange names he had finally learned

to speak at summer’s end—day lilies,
. . . . . dahlias, asters, and, at last, chrysanthemums—

now so proud of his growing vocabulary.
. . . . . Yet, after he finishes stating his seasonal

litany, we must begin again, as he mouths
. . . . . each word I say: icicle, blizzard, hibernation . . .

AUTISM: A POEM

. . . . . V. Winter Images


. . . . .1

All night long a slow moving snowstorm
. . . . . has filled the tree lines along these hillsides.

In morning light the wedges of evergreens,
. . . . . dressed white, ride higher ridges like those set

mainsails of old boats we’d often view last
. . . . . summer floating lazily just off shore in slight

August breezes, dyed by a low angle of evening
. . . . . sun still shining brightly against their triangles.


. . . . .2

When my son and I walk toward the woods
. . . . . not far behind our house, follow closely each

small cloud of breath appearing ahead of us—
. . . . . as though there were no other way we could

measure evidence of life on so pale a day—
. . . . . we see even these few tall poplars rising nearby,

their limbs yet empty of leaves, seem bleached
. . . . . white or covered now with linen cloth, in need

of some color, perhaps as in those seasonal
. . . . . prints of tinted poplars Monet once had painted

more than a century ago. The artist so loved
. . . . . his rich images of those trees he bought the land

where they stood until he filled his canvases,
. . . . . but then sold his models’ good wood for lumber.


. . . . .3

Alex removes both of his gloves to touch
. . . . . the whiteness—lifting a thick clump of snow

in one hand, tracing the length of an icicle
. . . . . with a thumb—lingering until his thin fingers

are almost numb. Although usually content
. . . . . to live merely in images on the page or within

a frame, whether summer or winter, I know
. . . . . my son can only feel the cold, must make it real.

AUTISM: A POEM

. . . . . IV. Autumn Disorder

I watch outside our kitchen window as my son
. . . . . cleans dried leaves from the darkening rose garden

beside that yard barn used mostly as a tool shed.
. . . . . Tall stalks of summer’s flowers are now brown

and have gone bare. The shadow of a nearby file
. . . . . of evergreens forming the rear property line rises

waist–high, but his eyes seem blinded by a low
. . . . . angle of afternoon sunlight, and he does not know

I see him. Two empty fruit trees yet spread open
. . . . . their thin branches above his head, and I can tell

he is speaking softly to himself, slowly counting
. . . . . out loud each leaf he bags, as though he still hopes

he will bring some sort of order to this world
. . . . . he once again feels has fallen down all around him.

AUTISM: A POEM

. . . . . III. Early Spring

Squinting from this distance, we see new
. . . . . flowers now growing in our neighbor’s

garden seem nothing more than colorful
. . . . . splotches, as if someone had smudged

circles on a canvas, each simply fitted
. . . . . into its handsome landscape by a quick

stab of twisted brush stroke. A cold
. . . . . breeze still eases through willow trees

like a sigh that signals resignation,
. . . . . stirring the green leaves already filling

in early spring, as splashes of sunlight
. . . . . filter through their thin limbs and settle

like shreds of tatted lace, swatches
. . . . . as white as fine linen, littering the lawn.

Farther on, a hurried rustle of feathers,
. . . . . then a flurry when a flock of waxwings

flushed out of bushes by our son flashes,
. . . . . rises high above everything, and an empty

sky is suddenly split with that high string
. . . . . of wings sliding by, stragglers swinging

like kites into a few loose rings overhead.
. . . . . All day, my wife and I have been strangely

occupied by such minor changes in that
. . . . . set arrangement of the world around us.

During this season, so much in transition,
. . . . . still we sit on a stone bench in a broken

lacework of shade beneath these trees,
. . . . . watch those last waxwings wheel over

a neighbor’s house and above our son,
. . . . . anticipate the slow erosion of daylight.

AUTISM: A POEM

. . . . . II. Sounds of Warning

He doesn’t understand how the terms he’s heard
. . . . . have any meaning beyond mere music filling his ears,

even as he listened to this rising lilt of his mother’s
. . . . . voice, though she spoke softly at first, hoping to offer

a warning of harm yet without risking his physical
. . . . . reactions to stress when alarmed. But now her words

lift above a high whine of the town’s tornado siren
. . . . . and a couple of quick thuds, distant thunder arriving

from somewhere along the horizon. There, bright
. . . . . cracks of lightning still splinter that blue-black sky,

backlighting the web of a neighbor’s diseased elm,
. . . . . as if its twist of wilted limbs had suddenly come alive.

AUTISM: A POEM

. . . . . I. Summer Storm

Tonight, a summer storm brightens the sky,
. . . . . striking with its quickly lit filaments of lightning

and moving through like that late freight train
. . . . . traveling toward an early morning rendezvous

at a transfer station somewhere north of here,
. . . . . barely beyond the state line. My son wakens, shaken

by the sudden thunder, the longer jutting limbs
. . . . . of an old oak weighted with wet leaves scraping

against the vinyl siding running just underneath
. . . . . the eaves. Already, a frustrated search for speech,

each word lost like the black surface of that little
. . . . . lake now hidden behind his shut window shades.