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.